Alter
by notmanos
Summary: A search for the missing Marcus leads Logan and Scott to a mysterious killer, who can wipe out dozens of people without a trace. But how can you prepare to take on a threat when you don't know what you're dealing with?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: The character of Wolverine the X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. The characters of Angel are owned by 20th Century Fox and Mutant Enemy. Bob and his crew are all mine. Please ask for rental rates on Bob and his crew._

_N.B.: Takes place shortly after "X2", and directly after "The Land of the Blind"._

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* * *

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ALTER

* * *

1

"I'm a dead man."

That wasn't what you expected to hear when you turned on an answering machine. Certainly not the Professor's answering machine, at nine in the morning. And yet there it was, complete with small explosive noises in the back ground - "thoomb thoomb" - that Scott instantly deduced must have been gunshots. The voice was very deep and masculine, and although the connection was poor (he was clearly on a cell phone), it could only be Marcus, Logan's amoral mercenary friend. Was he the one shooting, was someone shooting at him, or both? Knowing him, both.

"I fucked up, Logan," the ghostly voice of Marcus continued, while the shooting also continued in the background. Scott stared at the machine as if it would help, the sunlight pouring in through the window warming his back. "This place, th -" A huge burst of static so loud it made him wince obliterated whatever it was Marcus said. Was that natural? He didn't think so; Scott knew cell phone reception could be pretty shitty, but that sounded like some kind of electromagnetic burst. " - inda accident, something got loose, I don't know what, but it's -" More static, more gunshots, more words he couldn't make out. " - se help, even if it's just to pick up the pieces. This is totally fu -" A final burst of static, and the connection just died.

Scott stared at the answering machine until the machine turned itself off with a click loud enough to make him start. The Professor really needed to get himself voice mail or something.

What was he supposed to do now? He wasn't even supposed to be in the Professor's office.

It was weird, but even though it had happened before, it still stunned him when Xavier got sick. A nasty cold had been working its way around the mansion for the good part of a month now, and Xavier had finally fallen victim to it (Scott had gotten it himself a couple of weeks ago). He was so miserable and zonked out on cold meds that he was staying in bed today, and Scott was trying to juggle the Professor's schedule around, because he wasn't a great teacher of quantum physics. Yes, the Professor was as Human as any of them, but it always caught him off guard when he got sick. Why he had no idea. Anyone else could get sick, and he wouldn't think anything of it, but Xavier being ill rattled him.

Now this. He tried to star sixty nine the number, but couldn't; a trace also proved pointless. He'd have to roust Xavier out of bed to use Cerebro to find Marcus … but Xavier was in no shape to do that. Hell, he took Nyquil - he might not be up for days. Besides, this _was_ Marcus; it was possible he got exactly what he deserved. A hapless victim that fought back a lot harder than anticipated.

Still.

He stood there, wondering what he was going to do.

Where _was_ Logan right now anyways?

* * *

It had been a very long night of vampire and demon hunting, and the sun was on the verge of coming up. So what better time to show Angel the new place?

He didn't yet tell him it was his. He had told Angel he had inadvertently inherited it from a "guy he helped out once" - he didn't bother to add this "guy" happened to be the former head of the L.A. branch of the Triad, as that seemed beside the point anyways. Angel walked through the place, letting out a low whistle of admiration. Logan sat on the leather sofa in the living room, slumped back, not hurt - tonight had been far too easy; that nest of vampires in an old tenement on the East Side were a disappointing bunch of pussies - just tired. Maybe it was because he exchanged small talk with Naomi, who was as beautiful as ever, and looked at him with just the merest hint of recognition. She recognized him as Angel's friend, the guy who visited her once shortly after that whole "Canadian thing", and that's all. He thought taking out the frustration on a bunch of bloodsuckers would make him feel better, but it didn't. He just felt old and shriveled inside - here was another woman he had to let go for his own good. And hers, whether she knew it or not. He was just bad news, poison to everyone he loved. He should really just stick to casual flings; he didn't think he could take much more of these emotional beatings. They didn't seem to heal like the physical ones.

"Is this a real Klee?" Angel called from the bedroom.

"I dunno," Logan replied with a weary sigh. "Maybe you can find some way to figure it out. It's yours."

Angel returned to the living room, his footfalls soft on the carpet. "Huh? You're giving me the painting?"

"I'm givin' you the place. I don't wanna live here."

Angel stared at him like he'd just ripped the head off a bunny. "Are you nuts? Why don't you want to live here? It's great!"

"I meant California. I don't wanna live in California."

His expression of surprise faded to one of understanding. "Well, okay, I could see that. But I don't want to take your place."

He was afraid he might say something like that. At least he had a counter. "I need someone to look after this joint, don't I? I trust ya not to have an orgy or kick the couch out the window."

"I can't have an orgy?" He replied, giving him a strangely goofy grin. Well, goofy for him, anyways.

Angel was in a good mood, and why not? He was back - alive (well, undead), not dead - and things were going pretty well. He had a new team, consisting of Giles, Naomi, and Brendan, which covered a lot of bases - Giles knew everything there was to know about demons, and was a high level spell slinger; Naomi was electrical girl, which certainly made her a lot less vulnerable to big nasties; and Brendan had a lot of street connections, as well as an "in" with the Church of the Stone Temple, which was actually more valuable than it seemed. And the Sisters were always willing to give him a hand, although Angel was naturally reluctant to accept their help. It was a good team, though; solid, tough, capable of facing just about everything. They didn't need him around.

But he wasn't ready to go back to Xavier's either. The truth was, he just needed to get away sometimes, and he felt that urge now. No, it really wasn't ideal for him to be alone with his thoughts, ever, but he did need to break away from people now and again. He had an urge to go back to Canada, get lost in the woods for a while. He'd probably be a more decent person afterwards. If that was possible.

"Only if you invite me," Logan replied, with a tired smirk.

"Now how fair is that? You're here what? Once every few months?"

He was teasing him, but Logan was honestly too tired for it. He was back to not sleeping well, although he wasn't sure he'd ever actually slept _well_. Less badly was probably the only way to put it. "Yeah, well, deal with it, Sparky." He picked up the window remote, and hit the button blacking out the windows. Angel watched the darkness spread through the glass with something like wonderment. "Thought it was startin' to get sunny in here."

"Wow," he gasped, staring at the now black glass. "That is so fucking cool."

"I thought you'd like that." He tossed him the remote, and levered himself to his feet. "Just don't push the button again 'til the sun goes down."

"Sure thing." He put the remote down on the coffee table, and simply the way he hesitated let Logan know he was about to bring up an uncomfortable topic. "Um, are you okay?"

He raised an eyebrow at him, trying to warn him off with a look. "I'm fine. Those idiots weren't even able to lay a fang on me."

He shook his head vigorously. "No, I'm not talking about tonight. I mean in general. These last couple of days, you've seemed … I don't know. More taciturn than usual."

He shrugged. "I'm just tired, that's all. Don't feel like talking."

Angel's look was skeptical, and yet pitying, which he didn't like at all. "It's about Naomi, isn't it?"

"No, it's not. I just need to get some sleep, okay?" He knew he was getting angry, and he also knew if he did, he'd basically be confirming Angel's hypothesis that this was all about Naomi. It wasn't all about her, just part. "I'll be okay, I just need to get my head together. And don't say that'll take me forever - you know what I mean."

Angel didn't even attempt to crack a smile, which made him nervous. "Yeah, I know. If I can help at all …"

"I know. Thanks." He headed for the door, eager to get out of here before things turned any more maudlin. Angel let him, probably not wanting that either.

Logan knew he couldn't really have a headache - not unless he took a massive shot to the head - but it felt like he had a leaden fog hovering inside his brain. Being exhausted could do that to him, but he had been sleeping lately, in a scattershot fashion. Could he be … depressed? God, if that was true, that was disappointing. It meant he'd stayed here way too long. He needed to get his mind off himself and his latest emotional disasters before he ceased to tolerate himself.

He'd left the building and was barely four steps away from the door, just exposed to the cool pre-dawn air (it seemed to be the only time L.A. was actually cool this time of year), when he saw Brendan leaning against Thrak's violently chartreuse taxi. Logan scowled at him. "What are you doin' here?"

Brendan held up his cell phone. "Scott wants to talk to you."

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. "Couldn't you tell him I'm dead or something?"

"He said it's about Marcus."

He felt a cold twinge in his stomach, and held out his hand, gesturing for the phone. Scott didn't hide his dislike of Marc, so if he was calling about him, either Marcus had done something he was really pissed off about, or … well actually he couldn't imagine a second scenario. Marc had pissed him off. Was it an old grudge, or a new one? "What is it?" he snapped into the phone, looking out on the street. The traffic was picking up, but it was still remarkably sparse for Los Angeles. This was pretty much the only time to even attempt to navigate the streets.

Scott sighed, as if he found his annoyance equally annoying. "I think something's happened to Marcus."

Okay, maybe he needed to get his mind off himself, but he wasn't sure he needed to do so quite this badly.

* * *

Logan found himself in a coffee shop, staring at a tea he actually didn't want and listening to Marc's phone message, as Scott played it for him.

That burst of static he didn't like. It was electrical interference, some kind of electro-magnetic burst, most likely to block out all forms of communication (meaning the first "shot" wasn't quite good enough; the second shot successfully took out the phone), which raised a few questions. There weren't a lot of people who would have access to a device like that, and fewer still who would actually risk using it. A burst of that intensity could, at least in theory, kill a person too. But the most troubling thing was Marc asking for his help in the first place; with his whole machismo thing, he wouldn't do so unless he really thought there was a good chance he'd get his ass killed. But then again, he did say he was dead, didn't he?

The message ended for what was the fifth time, and Scott asked, "Get anything new out of that?"

"No. I've made out all I'm gonna hear over the phone. Has Xavier tracked him down yet?"

"He's still out. I'd really rather not wake him 'til later -"

"'Cause it's Marc, right?" he spat bitterly.

"No, because he is genuinely ill," Scott shot back. He paused, perhaps to keep his temper in check, and then said in a more reasonable tone, "Was he tracking down the Organization again?"

"I dunno. You'd think, but he's still a merc; he has to make a living." He rubbed his neck, and wished Marc had given him more to go on, but perhaps he had, and that damn electromagnetic interference took it out.

There was only one thing he could do, one lead he could follow. He had to go to Marc's place and see if he left any hint of where he had gone.

Man, if he was always going to end up playing detective, he was going to need to get a fucking license.

2

In a way, he was lucky. Rags wasn't too hung over to give him a lift via teleportation spell. But the negative part of his otherwise good luck was that Rags wasn't hung over because he was still drunk. Not sloppy drunk, but drunk enough that he sometimes spoke in all accent - no discernable words, just random Cockney syllables. But from how belligerent he got when he didn't answer him, Logan figured Rags didn't realize he was speaking gibberish.

At least Rags got him to Baltimore, which was more than he thought he could actually do. Of course, he missed Marc's apartment, and actually put them smack dab in the middle of the street in front of the building. It was dumb luck that there wasn't a car coming down that road at that very moment, otherwise Rags would have been road kill. (He wouldn't have been - it wasn't like he hadn't been hit by a car before.) Since he didn't want to shred the building's security system, he got Rags to teleport them inside, but they ended up materializing on the stairwell, and if Logan hadn't reached out and snagged him, Rags would have gone tumbling head first down the stairs. "Tung ew," Rags muttered, nearly losing his balance again. His alcoholism was as dangerous as it was annoying, but Logan knew he really couldn't be that angry at him, because if booze effected him at all, he'd never stop being drunk. There was comfort in oblivion, even if it did kill your liver.

He told Rags to wait in the hall as he popped a single blade and jimmied open Marc's door. And he'd just had it repaired from the last time he'd done it. Oh well.

Marc still had one of the neatest bachelor apartments ever, and even though it was stuffy in here because the air conditioning wasn't on, it didn't have that musty, slightly unpleasant smell of a sealed room. Logan did a quick, brief visual survey, looking for anything that might be remotely helpful. But Marc was neat as well as slightly paranoid, so he knew he probably wouldn't have left anything out in the open.

He checked the kitchen garbage can beneath the sink, but it was empty - he must have tossed it out before he left. (That might explain the lack of a bad smell.) He looked in the fridge, which was surprisingly empty of fresh food, but had a good stock of beer, soda, and energy drinks. He grabbed a bottle of microbrew and took a good swig before continuing.

On Marc's coffee table was a small pile of junk mail, and a book with the curious title "I Dream of Microwaves", and the even more curious cover photo of a man with his head hidden inside an oven, and the rest of his slightly lumpy body sprawled out of it. He bet Marc just picked it up for that cover alone. He had a bookmark in it, but at the end - in fact, a quick scan of his crowded bookshelf turned up bookmarks in nearly every book (and what a thing to see books by Nietzche and John Stuart Mill sandwiched in between graphic novels and The Dead Zone), suggesting he simply left them in the books he used them in. He checked the bookmark anyways, but it was just a folded page from a George Carlin "page-a-day" calendar, from April first. There was nothing written on it, and the small paragraph itself - about not having any "cool" crimes when George was a kid - was no help at all.

He took a look at his DVD shelf, as he spied a piece of paper wedged in between The Usual Suspects and Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law (god, what a psychological portrait his movies and books could paint of him - mainly that he was really, _really_ weird), but it was just the receipt of a light bill from three months ago. "You want me to find you, you bastard," Logan muttered to himself. "Give me a fucking clue here."

His bedroom was neat, his bed made, and a search of the nightstand turned up only a "little black book" filled with women and men's names, a half empty box of condoms, and a Browning Pro-40 handgun, with half a clip of a hollow points and the safety on. He wondered if any of his paramours had ever found it, and wondered who the hell they had gone home with.

The closet and dresser were full of clothes, but nothing remotely helpful. The bathroom was his last resort, and it too was neat enough to make him give up instantly. But he checked beneath the sink, where the bathroom garbage can was, and actually found some crumpled bits of paper. He grabbed them and smoothed them out on his grey slate floor. One of the pieces of paper was an envelope, the type you got a plane ticket in - and it was for Scandinavian Airlines. The other was a receipt from the neighborhood Walgreens, dated about a week ago, and showed purchases of many "travel sized" items, including shaving cream, toothpaste, and Excedrin. The third piece of paper was a receipt from a gun shop, where he bought an absolute buttload of ammunition.

So he was somewhere in Scandinavia? What the hell was in Scandinavia? Not just what, but what was there that was so well armed and so ready for him that he couldn't handle it? He scoured his memories, as he vaguely recalled Marc telling him something about a company doing illegal medical things to mutants in Northern Europe, but he'd taken care of that. Hadn't he?

Oh shit, what if they were ready for him this time? What if they got him?

Rags was still sitting in the hall, looking as if he was going to fall asleep any second, but he was talking to himself - or perhaps his invisible friend. It was pure gibberish, although every now and then there was a coherent word. " … unble gren forceps muh shivite olness pancakes …"

"C'mon, Rags, you have to get me to the mansion," he told him, grabbing his arm and lifting him back up to his unsteady feet.

"Twaddle," he slurred, or at least that sounded like what he said.

Maybe an evil bastard corporation experimenting on mutants for medical patents would be enough to make Scott interested in finding Marcus before he became nothing but a case study, and a corpse in a shallow grave.

But just in case it wasn't, he could always threaten to keep Rags around until Xavier got up. That should make him do something.


	2. Chapter 2

3

When it came down to it, he just didn't know if he could trust him.

He didn't feel too bad about it, and wouldn't, as long as Xavier wasn't up. If there was some pharmaceutical company experimenting on mutants, wouldn't they have already heard something about it? The Professor had connections that Logan couldn't imagine - if something like that was going on, he'd have known. Scott was sure of that.

But why would Marcus have lied to Logan? He'd believe him lying to someone else, sure, but Logan? Seemed weird. And there had been rumors on the internet of such places, but it was the internet - there were rumors about Elvis living happily with Bigfoot, and many sites dedicating to proving it. You could find your deepest wish or most persistent fear championed by frighteningly large groups. You couldn't trust a damn thing on there.

If it _were_ true, though … it was more than troubling. Treating mutants as lab rats was bad enough when it was the Organization doing it for military purposes. But for medical purposes? No one sane or reasonable person had liked the Nazis - so why were some people so eager to emulate them?

Logan gave him no information to go on anyways: "a pharmaceutical company in Northern Europe". That was like saying "A volcano in the mid-Pacific" - he'd had no idea there were so many in Europe. And the only modifier Logan gave him - "somewhere Nordic" - didn't help much at all. What was he going to do? Call them and ask, "Are you experimenting on mutants? Would you please stop?" Yeah, that would work.

As if to makes things worse, there was Rags. He was currently in the med lab, snoring so loud you could actually hear him in the hall, even though the room was basically soundproof. He wasn't so much sawing logs as chainsawing through a cement bunker. He'd have thought no living, properly functioning Human could make a noise like that, but that made sense, as he wasn't Human. Still, that didn't seem like a normal noise …

He encountered Logan in the hall, and he must have caught him glaring at the room where Rags was making a noise like a badly tuned leaf blower, because he said, "I made sure he was turned on his side, so, y'know, if he vomits in his sleep, he won't choke on it."

That hadn't occurred to him. Was it really a good thing anyways? Maybe when your time was up … no, that was just cruel. "I think he'd had some absinthe, I could smell it comin' through his pores," Logan continued.

Scott shook his head in disbelief. "Hasn't he heard of rehab?"

Logan shrugged, in a manner suggesting that he didn't care his supposed "friend" (acquaintance, whatever Rags actually was to him) was killing himself a bottle at a time. "He's a Persaid demon, and I guess that's how he handles it. I would if I were him, so I can't bug 'im."

"What do you mean 'that's how he handles it'? Handles what?"

"Well, his kind are supposedly sponges of negative psychic energy. They absorb … bad feelings, I guess. They can't help it, I don't even know if they're aware of it. But I'd imagine it would get to you after a while."

Scott tried to imagine that as a power, but it seemed so nebulous as to be almost non-existent. Besides, if he really removed "bad feelings" from a room, why was Rags involved in so many fights? It didn't track.

But it was all beside the point. He shook his head, and got back to the most important point. "I need more information about where Marcus might be. I can't narrow it down any further."

Logan scowled at him, like _he_ was being the asshole. "I can't. He never told me the name of the place. I don't even think he told me the name of the country."

Scott scoffed in disbelief. "You don't _think_? Do you know or d -" He paused as the elevator door suddenly slid open, and he was surprised to see Rogue and the Professor come out.

Rogue was pushing the Professor's chair, and it was impossible to say which of them actually looked worse. They both had the cold (dubbed by Piotr as "the cold of the damned"), and they looked pasty and tired, with chapped, bright red noses and watery eyes. Although Rogue was pushing his chair, the Professor looked slightly better than her. "Oh, thang gog yer here," Rogue said, sounding highly congested. She left the Professor's chair, and walked over to Logan, stripping off one of her gloves.

Logan raised an eyebrow as he looked between her outstretched hand and her face, and grumbled, "You just wanna use me for my body."

She frowned at him, and said, "Give me a breag. You owe me one anyways."

"I do? News to me." Still, after a few skeptical seconds, he sighed and grabbed her hand. Veins popped out on his hand and seemed to worm their way up her hand, small tendrils appearing beneath her throat as they did beneath his. After only a few seconds he let go and staggered back, hitting the wall for support as Rogue just remained standing there. The chapped redness of her nose faded as he watched, the redness and liquidity of her eyes disappearing into clean clear whiteness in two blinks, and she shook her head and took a deep breath. "Oh wow, that so much better," she said, no longer sounding congested. "You're so lucky you don't get sick."

"Cheater," the Professor said to her, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smirk.

"Hey, you'd do it if ya could," she replied flippantly, sounding a bit like Logan.

Logan himself looked briefly ashen, but soon his skin seemed to flush, his healing factor kicking in and compensating for whatever Rogue had taken from him. "You're weakenin' your immune system by takin' from me," he pointed out, straightening up. He almost looked normal. "It'd be better for you in the long run if you just lasted it out."

Rogue wiped the crust away from her nose, and shook her head. "Maybe, but I ain't waitin'. This was a real bitch."

Scott gave her a sour look for the language, but she ignore him, like she usually did. Instead, he turned his attention to the Professor. "Are you sure you should be up?"

In spite of being obviously ill, Xavier gave him a look that made him feel exactly ten years old. "I'm fine, Scott. I've probably had more colds in my lifetime than you, and the drugs wore off enough that I sensed some distress." Just as he paused, a loud ripsaw snore tore through the hall, and both Rogue and the Professor looked towards the med lab.

"Do y'all have an angry buffalo in there?" she asked.

"Rags is … sleeping it off," Logan offered, clearly tempering his language around Rogue (for once - way too late, but hey, at least he remembered to do it once).

"Sleeping off what exactly? Oh, don't answer," Xavier replied, humor sparkling in his eyes. He may not have felt great, but he was in a terribly good mood. That Nyquil must have been something. "We have someone to look for, don't we?"

Xavier steered his wheelchair down the hall, towards Cerebro, and while they followed, so did Rogue, which made both Scott and Logan stop and look at her. "What?" she replied, peeved. "Marcus is missing, I know that. Maybe I can help."

Before Scott could tell her to go back upstairs, Logan drawled, "Yeah, you can. Keep an eye on Rags for me, okay? I got him up on his side, but he's kinda floppy, and I don't want him chokin' on his own puke. So if you don't mind …" he pointed down the hall, to where Rags was making the angry camel bellow.

She stared at him for a solid thirty seconds, arms crossed over her chest, then turned sharply on her heels and headed for the elevator. "I'm outta here," she added needlessly.

As soon as the door slid shut, Logan smirked . "I knew that would do it."

Logan had his moments. Not many, but he did have them.

Both of them followed the Professor into the cool metal room of Cerebro, the dome of the ceiling arching high over their heads. It looked higher than it actually was, a tricky optical illusion. "Are you sure you're up to this?" Scott asked nervously, as the Professor grabbed the helmet interface, and the doors slid closed behind them. He could remember just how miserable that bastard cold left him feeling.

Xavier looked back at him with a small, faint smile. "Your concern is noted, but misplaced. I wouldn't be down here if I didn't think I could do it." He slid the interface on, and the room faded to darkness before what appeared to be a holographic map of the world filled the sphere, the scattered mutants across the world appearing as pinpricks of gold light on its surface.

It was when Xavier was focusing, making the globe swing to the European side, that Scott saw something odd. It looked like a faint spray of dull golden dust, almost more mustard than gold, and too small and diffuse to be spots; it almost looked like a small nebula superimposed on a tiny part of northern Europe. Logan must have seen it too, because he asked, "What the hell is that?"

Xavier brought it into tighter focus, but it didn't help at all. It didn't become any clearer or sharper, and in fact the color seemed to fade the closer he got. "That's Denmark, isn't it?" Logan asked.

"It seems to be," Xavier acknowledged, and his voice had the slightest hint of strain. "An island off of Aero, I believe."

Logan nodded as if he knew where he was. Scott was vaguely aware Denmark had islands, but didn't recall one named Aero.

"What is it we're looking at?" Scott wondered.

Xavier shook his head faintly. "I'm not sure. I'm not picking up Marcus … and I can't quite get a lock on whatever this is."

"It's a thing?" Logan replied.

"I don't think it's a person. I'm not picking up a mind, per se … but I'm not sure what I'm getting here. It's some sort of mutation."

"But a mutation of what? Can you pick up animals on this thing?" Logan asked rather testily.

"No. This is picking up some fragment of Human mutant DNA - familiar DNA. That's why it's registering at all. Normally it wouldn't register something that isn't a living Human."

"If it isn't a living Human, what is it?" Scott reiterated.

Xavier paused dramatically, and that made him nervous. The unknowns were starting to make him reflexively nervous, mainly because he had yet to encounter one that was much good.

Before he could respond, though, the nebula of faint gold fuzz started fading away, dissipating like smoke. "What's goin' on?" Logan asked, sounding anxious. Did he think this was somehow connected to Marcus? Then again, did they have proof it _wasn't_?

Again Xavier hesitated, and Scott knew instantly the next thing out of his mouth would be a guess. "I'm not

sure. It's being shielded somehow, or - "

"Dying?" Logan interrupted, sounding pissed off. (Normal.)

"If it was never fully alive in the first place, I'm not sure you can classify it as dead," Xavier responded with asperity. "I'm honestly not sure what's going on here."

But it was quickly a moot point. The amber fog had completely disappeared off the map. Gold points of light glimmered on the "mainland", deeper into Europe, but that little island was a dark spot of nothingness. To say it was weird was an understatement.

"I should probably check that out," Scott said, scratching his head. What would he find? Anything?

"Yeah, we oughta," Logan agreed. "Scandinavian Air hits Copenhagen, and it'd be a strange coincidence if this wasn't connected to Marc somehow."

Scott scowled at him - we? - but Xavier took off the helmet, causing the doors to open behind them, and he looked back with a small, tight smile, meant specifically for him. "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. I'm curious what that was as well."

Xavier couldn't see him roll his eyes behind the visor, but he was sure he knew just the same. There was no point in teaming him up with Logan - they were never really going to get along, and he had to know that. It wasn't just the Jean issue (although there was that) - they just had whole different philosophies. For instance, he thought going off half-cocked and killing in general was wrong; Logan clearly didn't agree. Which was puzzling since Xavier didn't agree with killing either, so why was Logan here? You couldn't "save" a man who didn't want to be saved.

(But he sure did come in handy when the Organization hit the mansion, didn't he? It was almost ... prescient ...)

Scott sighed and turned away, stalking out of Cerebro and heading towards the hangar to prep the jet, not bothering to check if Logan was following him or not.

Logan was bad enough. But trying to figure out if the Professor was playing a game of his own was somehow worse.

* * *

He would have preferred traveling with one of the kids. At least they would generally take orders. 

Logan didn't want to put on the suit - again. He figured this wasn't "official" so there was no need to bother, but Scott disagreed.

Finally, when they were within about forty minutes of their destination, Logan went into the back and put on the suit. He came back to the co-pilot's chair grumbling. "I feel like such an asshole in this thing," he muttered.

"If the suit fits," Scott suggested, not bothering to smother his smile.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Logan glare at him. "What, you like dressing up as a leather boy?"

"It's not really leather, it's -"

"I shoulda known. You repressed types are always kinky."

"I am not repressed! Just because I'm not amoral -"

For some reason, that made Logan chuckle and shake his head, and Scott felt like hitting him because there was something so patronizing in it.

But that was probably what Logan wanted to do, rattle him, goad him, so he didn't take the bait. He concentrated on the instrument panel and ignored him, studying wind speed and flight patterns.

They had to fly above most commercial airline lanes, which put them up pretty damn high, with a layer of clouds blocking out almost all sign of land or water, so they were extremely reliant on instruments. Of course at these speeds, things were changing rapidly, almost too rapidly for the instruments themselves, so he gave Logan the job of watching them and telling him when they got the readings he wanted. Tedium, with the added bonus of trying to keep on top of all the readings, which were flying by at an almost superhuman clip. This was where Logan could prove his eyesight was really supernaturally good.

He groused a little - he expected that - but he did tell him when they hit the numbers he wanted, and Scott took them into a lower altitude, shedding speed and dipping below the major flight lanes since they were now entering Denmark's airspace. Denmark didn't really have a lot in the way of anti-aircraft defenses, so even if they were picked up, all they had to worry about was a fighter jet intercept, and they could easily lose one of those. Still, he didn't want that to happen; they didn't need that kind of attention.

It was going on evening here, the sun's reflection turning the ground below a burnished orange like an old and faded photograph. Even though he was concentrating on flying and not getting painted by someone's radar, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Logan was staring out the windscreen, looking down at the land speeding below them with something almost like wistfulness.

"The Danes are a remarkable people," he said, apropos of nothing.

"What?" That seemed like an odd thing to say.

"Did you know that in World War Two, when the Nazis were parked on their doorstep and demanding that they give up their Jews, they refused? They were looking at an entire Panzer division, this tiny little country, and they said no."

Scott considered that a moment. "I think I saw a documentary about that last year." He vaguely remembered it; he was something of a history buff. But he really didn't know that much about it. For some reason, it didn't get mentioned much in history books, but yes, Denmark stood up to the Nazi war machine. Many Danes died, apparently, the country was occupied, but less than two percent of their Jews died - the Danish resistance had been able to smuggle a great majority of them to safety in Sweden. "Yeah, that was remarkable. It makes you wonder why more governments didn't do it."

"Because people have a tendency to abandon principals at gunpoint, if they ever really had 'em in the first place," Logan replied, with the assuredness of someone who had seen it too often to be surprised by it anymore. "But the Danes honestly believe that no one is lesser or greater than anyone else - a Dane is a Dane, and things like ethnicity or religion are secondary at best. At least back then. It's possible things have changed now, but ... I don't know. If the world ever decides to say "Give us your mutants or else", I have a feeling the Danes will still say "You'll have to get through us first". And good for them. It gives you some hope for humanity as a whole."

It was his tone of voice that made Scott study his face. It was strangely pensive, like he was gazing out into the past, and he remembered that picture he saw, that black and white photograph of Logan turning away from the camera as his other friends celebrated the end of World War Two. God, he was alive back then - and he was here, wasn't he? All they knew was he worked for Canadian Intelligence back then, that he was an operative who functioned as some kind of interpreter between all the allied groups functioning in the European theater at the time.

Weirder still, Scott realized he may have known more about Logan's past than he did. He saw the photo, so he must have been told some of that … but he didn't remember any of it, did he? It was gone. The one time in his life when he may have actually done some good (the Nazis were one group who honestly deserved to meet Logan in a dark alley - repeatedly), and it meant no more to Logan than a yellowed photograph and a small sheaf of mostly censored memos. It was someone else's life, someone who wore his face, and used his name, but wasn't him.

What was that like? To have so much of your life torn away; and not just your life, but a good part, a strong part, a part you could mostly be proud of. And now he was looking down at a place where he may have been, but couldn't consciously remember. He felt bad for him, and didn't want to, as it could only get in the way.

What a weird thought - Logan was an old man. Not only that, but he was once a spy. That was so weird on several levels, but mainly it was strange because he didn't have the temperament for it. Well … this Logan didn't. Maybe that other one, the one who fought in World War Two, did.

The place they were headed was actually a small island off of Aero, a picturesque island with little land mass and little development; a place that would be called "quaint" by a real estate developer. A quick computer search turned up no pharmaceutical company here or anywhere near here. Either that was a dead end, or this had absolutely nothing to do with Marcus, and Logan had simply gotten his hopes up.

It wasn't quite dusk, the sun was sinking slowly beneath a sea turned the color of molten gold, but Scott came around the far side of the island, hoping there was no one out for a leisurely evening walk on the shore. There was a flat field of slender green grass on a harsh bluff overlooking the sea, a perfect place to set the jet down - and film some kind of bodice ripping romance, where you needed windswept cliffs overlooking the unforgiving sea. It was actually beautiful; it was a shame they really didn't have time to enjoy it.

They landed easily, although it took a moment longer than it should have, mainly because there was a sudden updraft from the side of the cliff - it was just as windswept as he imagined, but slightly more dangerous.

As he shut everything down, he had Logan do a instrument sweep of the immediate area, which was just about twelve feet all around them; this island wasn't the size of Manhattan, and he honestly wasn't sure of its name. Aero, a tiny island, was huge by comparison to this one. The village that made up the population of the island was just over a wide swath of land, the centralized location of this tiny fishing village dwelling mainly in a tiny dip that probably passed for a valley. The rough cliffs on this side made it pretty much unusable; the wharfs and piers that supported their meager economy were all on the other side.

"You'd think we'd get a dog barkin' at us or somethin'," Logan commented, when the scan turned up nothing.

"Maybe when we get out," Scott offered. "They probably don't get a lot of visitors around here."

"Yeah. Especially visitors who look like escapees from an s & m farm."

Scott scowled at him, but Logan just spread his hands wide, a quiet way of saying "Prove me wrong". He shook his head dismissively and went to open the exit hatch.

He punched in the manual release, and stood to one side as the hatch unsealed from the side of the jet with a pneumatic hiss. And he'd been feeling _bad _for Logan a minute ago? No wonder it never lasted.

Logan had finally ventured from the cockpit, but he froze as if in horror, his face become a hard, feral mask. "Shut the fucking hatch!" he bellowed, suddenly racing for it.

"What?"

But Logan didn't answer; he'd already closed the distance between them and grabbed a rung on the hatch, making it stop. It would stop if it sensed inner resistance or something trapped in it, a safety failsafe. Logan continued to pull it back, making it automatically seal shut.

"What the hell is your problem?" Scott exclaimed, torn between anger and curiosity. Was being back in Europe making him freak out? He wasn't the most stable person in the world, so -

And that's when he smelled it.

The hatch had let in a whiff of cold air from outside before Logan forced it shut, but only now did Scott truly appreciate how rank and nauseating the smell was. "Oh my god," he gasped, slapping a hand over his nose and mouth. He could feel his gorge rising as the smell of shit, rotten fish, sea salt, and god knew what else seemed to settle in his nostrils. He swore he could almost taste it, and it made his eyes burn.

"It's death," Logan said, his eyes bright and slightly wild. "We're too late."

When he was sure he could open his mouth without vomiting, he leaned against the fuselage, and said, "Is there a reason to be so dramatic? It just smells like we hit someone's septic tank."

Logan glared at him with eyes more green than brown, and strangely sharp - they were the eyes of someone looking out from a very bad memory. "It's more than just shit; it's decaying flesh, it's the smell of the acid in your stomach digesting your own organs, it's the smell of blood turning to rust. Believe me, I know what it smells like."

He didn't want to; he wanted to believe Logan decided to pick now to be a drama queen. But he didn't. There was something too haunted in his expression, and something too meaty in the smell for him to believe it was just Logan's morbid imagination running away with him. Besides, if anyone knew death intimately, it was him.

Scott took a couple of cleansing breaths through his mouth, hoping the air circulations in the jet would scrub the scent away soon enough, and Logan tromped back to the cockpit, asking, "What turns on the cameras?"

That was a new upgrade he was experimenting with, micro-cameras embedded in the jet's skin to give them outer views. But since he knew that might not be good enough, there were also small probes, basically little missiles no bigger than bottle rockets, that could hit a specific area and give them a view of the area without risking anyone or drawing unnecessary attention. In beta tests, he'd worked out the kinks, but it'd never been field tested before. Well, now was as good a time as any, wasn't it?

He joined him in the cockpit and started to enter the appropriate information into the computer. "Want to go for the village?"

"That's where the people are," Logan replied, a strangely ominous agreement.

He could sense Logan behind him, so anxious the tension seemed to radiate off him in waves, but it wasn't fear - it was pure, unadulterated rage. Did the smell alone make him angry, or was he still worried about Marcus?

"Probe away," he reported dully, as the computer confirmed a successful launch. You could barely hear it inside the jet, it was just a soft noise, like someone hitting the plane with a pillow.

The monitor screen was no bigger than one you'd find on a portable television, and Scott stood off to the left so Logan could get a good view of it. Since the village wasn't far away at all, it was just two seconds before there was a confirmation of impact, and the camera began transmitting telemetry.

The village was beyond quaint. It had a wide cobblestone street, and many of the shops and homes lining it had a look that was positively Bavarian, with high peaked, sloping roofs and small square windows limned with brown paint. It wouldn't have looked out of place in a production of Heidi.

Except for the bodies.

They seemed to be everywhere, splayed on the sidewalks and splayed in the streets, looking for all the world like they'd been hit with mass narcolepsy and fallen asleep right where they'd been standing. One woman's shopping bag had broken on impact with the street, and oranges seemed to glow in the dim light like luminescent grenades. There were no words for the stark, quiet horror of the scene, none, and Scott could feel it in the pit of his stomach, a cold knot slowly growing tighter. Just like that; no warning, no chance to defend themselves or flee. Just like that. He didn't even see blood.

"What could do this?" Scott asked, but it was a rhetorical question. Logan couldn't know any more than he could.

All they knew was a mutant was probably behind it.


	3. Chapter 3

4

You wouldn't think there'd have to be much discussion about what to do next, but there was.

Logan wanted to go into town and see if he could tell what had killed everyone, since the scanners they did have were unable to identify a single dangerous thing in the air or area - although their scanners weren't sensitive enough to pick of traces of, say, sarin gas. All they could tell was that animals were still alive, they registered on the infrared scan, so that ruled out some kind of broad spectrum poison or incident.

It was irrelevant that whatever was out there could kill him too; Logan was in full belligerent mode, his _"Let it try and kill me" _machismo bullshit. Even though Scott was absolutely fine with Logan going out there and killing his fool ass, he knew he'd have to figure out a way to bring the body back, so he was opposed. Xavier was too, mainly because Logan wasn't completely invulnerable, although he clearly thought he was. (Or he didn't care that he really wasn't, which was slightly more troublesome.)

But Scott got tired of arguing with him - his mind was made up, and Logan was like a goddamn mule when he decided on something, no matter how stupid - and decided to just agree with him to get him the hell out of the plane. Xavier started to be swayed by his argument that he was the best sensor suite that they had on the ground at this moment, and it seemed like a done deal for Logan. Scott found a comm headset for him, one with a micro camera attached, so he could at least see what the hell he was doing. Logan agreed to wear it, but with a sour grimace that suggested it was a terrible burden he had to bear. Scott sealed himself inside the cockpit after Logan left, as there was a possibility there were still toxins in the air that they couldn't detect. Logan wasn't on comm yet, so he muttered to Xavier, "He's gonna kill himself, you know that."

There was a pause before Xavier's disembodied voice filled the cockpit, with a tone like warm honey. "He was never leaving without seeing if Marcus was here or not."

So that's what this was about? Sure, it made sense.

Scott honestly didn't know how Logan, with his heightened senses, could take that smell, but he said he'd smelled it before and was "inured" to it (it was always bizarre when, out of nowhere, Logan would use a ten dollar word - it was weirder still when he combined it with such slang words as "ain't" or spotty grammar; he had been several different people in his life, and clearly they all got jumbled up).

Logan got on comm as the hatch opened, and Logan went outside, into the gold and blue half-light of early dusk. He paused a moment, and it sounded like he groaned, reacting to the rank scent. But after a moment, he straightened up, and continued tramping through the field, towards the centralized village. "My system isn't reactin' to anything," Logan reported, his voice strangely quiet. Maybe the utter and frightening silence out there made him adjust his tone accordingly. "No immune response. I'm not smellin' anything toxic or otherwise more familiar either. Just death."

Neither he nor Xavier said anything, as there was nothing to say. The pictures from the village came in ghostly silence, with only the sound of Logan's footsteps in the distant background. Now that he was on the neat cobblestone central street, he started crouching down and taking a closer look at the bodies. Logan examined the body of a man in his early thirties, with an average build and thinning blonde hair tucked beneath a navy blue watch cap. Logan carefully turned his face towards him, and used a gloved thumb to open one of the man's eyes to look into it. For what Scott had no idea, and it seemed like a moot point, as there was nothing but bleached white; his eyes had rolled towards the back. The male's face was unnaturally pale, bloodless, with deep, wide smears of purplish-black beneath his eyes. "Rigor mortis hasn't started to set in yet," Logan reported blandly, like he was reading facts off a screen. "They haven't been dead for too long. Outside guess is maybe two to three hours."

"About the time we left," Scott noted dismally. He wondered how Logan knew all these facts about dead bodies, but then decided he really, _really _didn't want to know. He'd just assume that he watched an awful lot of CSI.

"Any sign of what killed them?" Xavier asked, keeping his tone studiously neutral.

"None. There's no blood in the nose, the ears, broken blood vessels in the eye, no sign of internal hemorrhaging, and I'm not smelling anything bacterial or familiarly viral." Logan huffed a sigh through his nose, closing the man's eye. "There's no obvious wounds either, or lesions. I've got no clue what killed them."

He got up and started wandering through the town, poking his head into shops and homes (no one locked their doors here, apparently - now it seemed like a pity, although it was doubtful a deadbolt would have protected them for this), stepping over dead bodies. At one point, Logan bent down, and picked up a very tiny teddy bear, with a ear that was just starting to unravel. Scott groaned to himself, aware that that was a toy that would belong to a baby or a toddler, and then he realized that, just within range of Logan's camera, was a handle on the sidewalk - a handle of a stroller. Logan put his hand over the camera, blocking the view. "You don't hafta see this," he said. To him? To Xavier? Unknown. But while he was angry at the presumption that they couldn't handle it, he was also unusually grateful. He didn't need to see the body - the bear alone would probably appear in his nightmares.

Logan removed his hand as he entered a shop, and after a comment about "somebody being dead in here", he started rifling through the shelves. The light was so dim, he couldn't see what he was after. "You're looting now?" Scott exclaimed.

"Fuck you, Scooter," Logan replied with a strange coolness. There was no heat in the response at all. Logan must have found what he wanted, because he started walking out, back into the half-light. There, Scott could see he was pulling the plastic wrap off a hypodermic needle, the type you might use to inject insulin.

"What are you doing?" Xavier asked first.

"Gettin' a sample. You know some doctors, right? Maybe they can figure something out." He went back to the first man he examined, the blond man in the watch cap, and went down on his knees beside him. "Sorry about this, bub," he muttered, as he tore the man's shirt open.

"What the hell are you doing?" Scott asked, hoping he wasn't about to dismember a corpse in front of them.

"Blood pools in the chest after death," Logan replied, and Scott could see that, somewhere beneath the ashen pall of death, there was a deeper purple hue in the chest cavity. Blood?

Logan seemed to press down on his chest with his fingertips for a moment, as if searching for a good spot, then he seemed to find it, and just drove the needle in like he was staking a vampire. Scott couldn't help but wince at the casual violence of it. Logan pulled the plunger back slowly, and thick, dark blood began to fill the needle. He'd almost filled it when he stopped, and suddenly produced a plastic bag that had lots of word on it in a Nordic language )he didn't know them all on sight, but one would presume it was Danish), but it had a big symbol on it that translated in any language - the biohazard symbol. It was a disposal bag for hazardous waste.

They watched him seal the needle inside the bag, and before he stood up, he straightened out the man's shirt, covering up his mottled, discolored chest once more.

No, it wouldn't mean a goddamn thing to a dead man. But it was a nice gesture, and that was about all they were good for at the moment.

5

You wouldn't think it would be so hard to find a good witch doctor on a Thursday.

But it was Los Angeles, and Bob knew he should have known better. No matter who you were - unless you were Brad Pitt - you waited. You got in line and queued like a good British person. And not even a god could rank up to someone pulling down twenty million a picture. After all, if you were any kind of god at all, you could _make_ them help you, whether they liked it or not.

Ah, L.A. - the place where you were automatically assumed to be crap, unless you had the finances and the pull to prove you weren't. Luckily, he had lots of money and lots of pull, and yet, sometimes it still wasn't enough. All a bunch of bollocks, really.

"You're running after something that you'll never kill," he shouted along with My Chemical Romance blasting from the bar. He was running through the address book on his computer, where he had a constantly updated list of genuine and actually good witch doctors, shamans, and plumbers (well, you never knew when you'd need a good plumber), and he actually had more plumbers than anything else on the list. Sadly, most witch doctors and shamans in the area were basically all about the business that was show, and couldn't actually do much. Those that could were either corrupted by Wolfram & Hart or killed off by them. "If this is what you want, then fire at will …"

There was a light knock at the door, and he wondered if it was someone complaining about his howling. "Come. Stand and deliver!" he called out in response.

The door opened a crack, and a bewildered blue eye stared in at him. "What?"

He grinned and waved her in. "Come in, Naomi, I was just bein' an oik. What can I do ya for?"

"Uh … umm … nothing really, I guess," she admitted, coming in with some hesitantly. He needed to turn it down from eleven, because she clearly wasn't used to him being a total spaz yet. She closed the door, but stayed near it.

He looked at her expectantly, and noted what she was wearing. "Don't you look a treat? Been shopping, have you?" He knew the answer to that, as she had come here with clothes she wore while in Minnesota, which was totally not suited for the weather in Southern California. Today she was wearing a lurex tank top with a tie-dyed green pattern on it, and drapey sand colored linen pants, with a low slung belt that had faux gemstones on a silver link chain. If she decided to power up, that would spark like a motherfucker.

She looked down at herself, as if her clothes were new to her, and admitted, "Yeah, I had no choice really. It was either that or swelter. Umm … thanks for helping me find a place, by the way."

He waved that off, closing his address book. It was hopeless; he was just going to have to wait until Kasinga actually bothered to answer his fucking phone to get himself a witch doctor. If only Ammy wasn't incommunicado in the Amitabha dimension. "No problem. If I couldn't help you and Rupert out, who could I help?"

She gave him a funny look. "I thought Giles said he wanted no help from you."

"Right, but he got it anyways. Just don't tell him." He gave her a conspiratorial wink. If Giles wanted to think he was a big, untrustworthy demon king/arms dealer/knockabout, it was fine with him. It was the image he generally cultivated, wasn't it? He could give him a hand behind the scenes as opposed to up front. Made no difference to him, and Rupert kept his pride intact.

She smiled in an anemic way and looked away, as a flush seemed to travel up her throat and to her face. Oh dear, what was this? "Have a seat," he offered, shutting down the computer (always a smart thing around Naomi anyways), and giving her his undivided attention. He sat back and gave her his warmest, most calming smile, hoping it would relax her. She seemed very hesitant and nervous - did she want to ask him for something?

She started towards the desk slowly, and paused as she read his shirt. Thankfully, today he'd picked the rather benign t-shirt of Ralph from the Simpsons saying, 'I'm Not Allowed In The Deep End Of The Sandbox'. It seemed that was true for him as well, as the Powers had barred him from the entire sandbox … for now. And it was less likely to scare her off than his 'Think Testicles' t-shirt. He remained sitting so she didn't see his pants, which were dark brown and decorated with a little grey feather pattern, and guaranteed to scare most people.

"Umm … thank you. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

He shook his head. "Nope, this is just a dicking around day for me. Wanna drink? I can have Lau bring us some beers."

It was her turn to shake her head as she sat down, sitting stiffly and anxiously on the chair. "No, thank you. It's a little early in the day for me." He just smiled at her, and waited for her to continue. She was silent, then realized he was waiting for her, and that seemed to make her more nervous.

So he asked a question he actually knew the answer to. "So, did Logan get a chance to talk to you before he left?"

That threw her for a second, but only that long. "No, no ... why would he? He looked at me sometimes like I was a ghost or something."

"That's a pretty accurate assessment."

She grimaced knowingly. "So we did have a thing, huh?"

"A big thing. Broke his heart."

"He loved me?"

"Seem to have, yes."

She paused warily, as if she didn't really want to ask the question, but felt compelled to anyways. "Did I love him?"

How to answer that one? Well, Logan wasn't around, so honesty wouldn't hurt. "I assume so. You did get your memory erased for him. He was supposed to take the hit, but you took it instead."

She frowned and looked down at the floor, as if looking for a nice platitude to wield. "Ah shit. So he's got a guilt thing?"

"Logan's good with guilt. He has more baggage than Martha Stewart on a camping trip. In other words, yes."

She exhaled slowly, like she was deflating, and sagged back in her chair. "Man. Y'know, I was afraid of that, but I never knew how to ask."

"In that case, ask me. I have no shame. I blab everybody's secrets. I'm like Cindy Adams with more lifelike hair." He gave her a cheesy, game show host grin. Okay, it wasn't true he blabbed everybody's secrets, but he lied like stink. He was a Belial demon in some respects, and it was hard to fight instinct.

She saw his expression and smiled in site of herself, glancing away with a chuckle. "You're somethin' else, you know that?"

"So the immigration authorities have told me. What can I help you with, Naomi?"

That made her look back at him in surprise. Yeah, he nailed it. "How did you -"

"I know a lot of things. I piss people off right good." Of course his powers of mind reading and snooping weren't quite what they usually were, but there was no need to alert everyone to this fact.

She fidgeted in her chair, smoothed out her pant legs even though they didn't need smoothing, and finally said, "I ... umm ... out in the bar I was talking to Helga. She seemed to be, uh ... talking with this guy."

"D'artagnan, you mean? Muscle bound Argot demon, looks Human except for the spikes that sometimes pop up on his forearms? "

She looked up sharply. "You knew ..?"

"Oh yeah, D'arty's an ex of hers from her New York days. Came west to try and make a living as a model or an actor, as if you couldn't tell from the name he's using. He's not doing bad, though. He's been concealing the spikes and showing up in ads for Hilfiger." D'art - real name Huntington, which you'd think would make an equally good frou-frou male model name - was kind of an indolent screw up, not at all a bad guy, just inherently lazy. He didn't even earn his impressive physique, it was simply genetic, as most Argots were ninety eight percent muscle. Good in a fight, but terrible in a famine. Hel herself had pointed out he looked really good, and he could be fun to party with, but talking to him was like trying to have a conversation with a potted plant. No Argot was known for to be a magnificent orator ... or a magnificent anything, come to think of it.

Naomi nodded, but looked slightly bewildered. "So they weren't ..."

"Flirting? Oh, possibly. Now that Logan's gone, she's going to have to find some new extra-curricular activity."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "So it's true? You guys have an ... open relationship?"

He nodded, giving her a calming smile. "Of course. Stansin's aren't known for monogamy, and it's just sex. She loves me, I know that. If she wants to jump another guy's bones as a hobby, it's cool with me. Well, as long as he's attractive and not diseased or a serial killer or something. And if he ever treats her badly ... well, no, she'd kill him herself. She's usually a better judge of character than that anyways."

She studied his face, as if she didn't quite believe him, but did she have any clue how old he was? Not only that, but he wasn't naturally corporeal. Sex was a hell of a lot of fun, love was grand, but neither were the be all and end all of anything. Of course, he had to learn both those lessons the hard way - damn the Powers. "It really doesn't bother you?"

"Not a bit."

"Well ... what about you? Do you ..?"

"Screw around on her? Well I can. Haven't done it a lot though."

That made her pause and consider what she was going to say before she went any further. "Any reason why?"

He considered that and shrugged. "I've been married about a billion times - a slight exaggeration, but not by much - and I know I can be rather emotionally impulsive. So I try to content myself with Hel, so I don't end up juggling a wife and a mistress like a Frenchman. I don't know how they do it; with all I have to do, and my eighty billion kids, I barely have time for the one relationship."

She clasped her hands together and wrung them nervously, and realized where this was going. Holy shit! "So you wouldn't be, uh, interested in another?"

"Naomi," he said firmly, and when she looked up, he caught her with his eyes. He hated to put a Belial whammy on her, but she was hesitating too much, and he needed to know the truth now, in case he was getting the wrong end of the stick. "Tell me what you came here to say."

She had to tell him. He had her now. "I came here to tell you the real reason I came to Los Angeles was to see you again."

Oh holy fucking shit. Logan was going to kill him.

6

He didn't actually want to come back to the school, but where else was he going to go? He could hardly search Northern Europe quickly on foot, could he?

As soon as they returned, and he gave the sealed blood sample to Xavier (who told him "Good job", like he was a kid in need of reassuring; it was hard for him to swallow back the "Go fuck yourself" that threatened to come out), he went and took a shower to wash the lingering scent of death out of his pores.

It made him furious. Those people were nothing - they were just regular people leading regular lives. And someone - something? - decided to kill them. There was no rhyme or reason to it, which made it by nature not only hard to fathom, but hard to trace. Random crimes were the hardest to solve, because there was no through line of motive to follow, and no obvious suspects. If a crime was truly senseless, it was totally illogical, and couldn't be traced back to any reason besides 'because'.

His bath had unscented glycerin soap in it, which still had a faint smell to him, but was much nicer and fainter than most scents. In fact, someone kept stocking up his room with unscented products, which was thoughtful. He assumed Xavier ordered someone to do it, but whoever they were they didn't dawdle long enough to leave much of a scent. Maybe Rogue did it; she'd shared his sense of smell before, and probably knew how annoying it could be.

He showered far too long, and knew the scent had to be gone, but lingered anyways. It was totally psychosomatic, but it didn't stop him from feeling the need to scrape a layer of his own skin off. He was still angry for those people, and didn't understand what the connection was between them and Marcus - if there was a connection. For some reason, he sensed he had missed something, that he was overlooking a clue, but he didn't know what.

He finally got out of the shower and just dried of in a perfunctory fashion before getting dressed, pulling on some jeans and a tank top before venturing out into the hall. He listened carefully, making sure the kids weren't out in a pack, as he really didn't want to have to deal with them right now. He stalked through the halls, avoiding any strays, and made sure the coast was clear before slipping inside Xavier's office and locking the door behind him. The Professor wasn't here right now, and the lock wouldn't hold him back, but at least it would warn him he was here and wanted in before any telepathy got thrown his way.

He sat on the corner of Xavier's desk and listened to Marc's message one more time. _"- inda accent, something got loose, I don't know what -" _And shooting in the background, major weapons, semi-automatic fire.

Marc hadn't been on that island. He hadn't gotten a whiff of cordite, come across a single spent shell, or seen a single hint of a gun there. There had been no fight; just death, sudden and surprising.

"_- something got loose -"_

So if Marcus wasn't on the island, how could the thing that got loose -whatever it was, person, animal, mineral, or other - get there? And why? It didn't make sense. They were missing something here, there was a huge piece of the puzzle gone. Hell, they couldn't even see the edges of it; they had no idea what the picture was even supposed to look like. The incidents could have been unrelated, but in roughly the same area? That was too much of a coincidence, and he didn't dare trust it.

Marc stumbled into something, or across something, and got tangled up in it. It wasn't what he expected; he got caught off guard. And now … now what? If he could have contacted them, he would have. The fact that he wasn't doing so became more troublesome as the minutes ticked by.

It was time to swallow his pride. Marc's life wasn't worth it.

He picked up the phone and dialed a sadly familiar number. After a couple of rings, a man picked up and said, "Yeah?"

"I need to talk to Bob. It's an emergency."

Lau, taciturn as always, didn't say anything. There was a click, like he was transferred to another line, and after a moment, the phone was picked up again. "I am not a number, I'm a free man!" Bob exclaimed dramatically.

Logan sighed. "Can you be serious for a moment?"

"Ooh, this sounds bad. What's up?"

So he told him the story, slightly abbreviated for time. He told them about Marc's phone call, the pharmaceutical company, the island off the coast of Denmark that was now nothing but a haven for corpses. Corpses who didn't seem to have any stories to tell about how they had died.

Bob, for once, just listened, and didn't interrupt. When he was finally done telling him the story, Bob said, "I'm on my way, okay?"

"Can you use your connections, find out -"

"The pharmaceutical angle? Yeah, got it, no problem. If records exist anywhere, I'll find them."

The one good thing about Bob - no doors were closed to him. Stuff that could elude Xavier wouldn't elude him; perhaps it was the simple difference between a man who didn't like to use his telepathy irresponsibly, and one who felt his powers were simply a tool to be used, neither good nor bad, just a thing to be wielded when a problem reared its head. Perhaps it also helped that Bob didn't actually have to go into their heads and extract the information; he just made them talk.

Logan just hoped it would be enough. And that it wasn't too late to save Marcus, and anyone else who ventured into the path of whatever slice of hell had accidentally been released on the world.


	4. Chapter 4

7

He knew he should have hung around at the mansion, waiting to see if Xavier's friends could cough up something on the blood sample before Bob showed up, but he couldn't stay; he was just too restless and tense.

Logan drove for a while, without any destination at all. He just let the bike loose on the road, chewing up white lines, trying to get lost in the feeling of momentum, in the power of the wind trying to pluck him from the bike and send him sprawling, but it wasn't enough. His mind wouldn't let go of the fact that Marcus was out there somewhere, in trouble so huge and unfathomable it was increasingly unlikely he was still alive.

If their positions were reversed, Marcus would move heaven and earth to find him. He had to do the same for him. But if he ran off with no information, he'd be worse than useless. The waiting for the info was the hideous, unbearable part, beyond the mere fact that there was so little at hand.

He found a bar and stopped in for a drink. It was the kind of place where there was so much shady shit going on - he assumed it was partially a front for a bookie's - that they didn't look at him twice. He sat in the back with a beer, ignoring the baseball game blaring from a television set behind the bar (which was warring with "A Boy Named Sue" playing on the sound system), and watching with half-hearted interest as two guys played pool rather poorly. It occurred to him he could play either of them and make an easy fifty, but he just wasn't in the mood.

There was a small grill in the back, and the smell of charred hamburgers suddenly made him feel ill. It was the meat smell, the blood - it was too much right now. He gulped down his watery beer and was about to leave when he heard a familiar voice say, "Eight ball in the corner pocket."

The man who was taking his shot - the one with the thinning mullet, as opposed to the guy with the full one - suddenly flubbed his shot, and sent the eight ball neatly into the corner pocket. "Goddamn it!" He cursed, as his friend cackled, and said, "She-it, Jed, you shoot like my dead granny."

"Fuck you," Jed sneered, and neither of them noticed the man who walked by their table and came straight to Logan's.

He looked up at Bob wearily, and asked, "Why'd you do that?"

Bob shrugged, and turned a wooden chair around so he could straddle it when he sat down. "There's something about a guy wearing a "Free Mustache Rides" t-shirt that just rubs me the wrong way. How are you holding up?"

He just glared at him. "D'ya need to ask? Just tell me you got some information for me."

Bob sank down in the chair, and paused dramatically before continuing. "A bit. One of the companies that has a branch in Copenhagen - Priotech Pharmaceuticals - has a rather unique money trail, which makes me think these may be our people."

Of course - the money trail. That was Bob's favorite trail to follow, and the most telling one, if you could follow all the twist and turns and diversionary tax shelters. Bob could, of course; he wrote the book on diversions. "Why? Where does it lead?"

"About eleven months ago, they got a two million dollar cash infusion from a corporation called Primafacie Limited."

"At first view?" he repeated, confused. That's what "prima facie" meant in Latin; it was generally a legal term meaning obvious or self-evident - a prima facie case of manslaughter. It was a weird name for a company. "Who the hell are they?"

Bob shrugged again, dipping his head to the side. "No clue. It has a lovely web page, but technically the company doesn't exist at all. It's a shell corporation, and with such a deliberately mocking name, I'm kinda wondering who the smart asses behind it are."

"Any clue who it might be?"

He considered that a moment, then shook his head. "Sorry mate. There's no shortage of whackers out there. It'd be easier if they were honest and polite and totally bonzer."

He was going to ask, but decided not to. He figured he should just be grateful that Bob didn't use Aussie slang all the time. "There's nothing useful at all?"

"Not really. It's based in England, which isn't the place you wanna be if you're trying to dodge taxes, and the payment was filtered through that new Asian money laundering capitol, Cambodia."

For some reason, just the mention of Cambodia made him feel uncomfortable. "Where in England are they centered? London?"

"Nope. Shropshire."

He waited in case it was a joke, but clearly it wasn't. "Shropshire? What the fuck's in Shropshire?"

"Umm, well, last time I was there, it was pretty well sheep infested. I don't think it's actually changed much since the eighteen hundreds."

He stared at him, but assumed it was a joke. Then again, it was probably half and half - part joke, part truth.

Bob's phone rang, but it took him by surprise, as it played the deliberately cheesy keyboard opening of Tool's "Eleven" almost perfectly. For a moment, he thought it was coming from the stereo system. Bob opened his phone and saw who was calling before answering, in a gratingly cheerful voice, "BobCo Enterprise. How can I help you?"

Logan mouthed the words _"BobCo?" _and rolled his eyes, but it was such a stupid name it was possible it existed. Suddenly, Bob got a serious look on his face, even though he was staring at the back wall, and for just a second, Logan could have sworn he saw Bob's eyes briefly glow cobalt. "Tell your boss that I'm whoever will make him answer the fucking phone immediately. Transfer me now."

It wasn't a command; it was a "push", and whoever was on the other end had no choice but to obey.

After a moment, the boss he wanted to talk to must have answered, because Bob said, in that low, deadly tone, "Tell me what you know about Primafacie Limited." Bob listened for several seconds, deliberately not looking at him. All Logan could do was wait. "Okay, who's behind it?" A pause. "Who did you deal with? What is Priotech engaged in?" Another beat. "If I want to talk to them, who do I contact?" He listened intently, then said, "We never had this conversation. And stop paying yourself five thousand times more than your workers." He flipped the phone shut and sighed, sliding it into the back pocket of his pants.

"Get anything?" he prodded, since Bob wasn't volunteering.

Bob exhaled again, as if punched, and he knew then, even before the piteous look, that this was horrible news. "He knew little about Primafacie, except they'd had a very ardent backer in the U.S. government - a Colonel William Stryker."

Logan felt his stomach turn to ice, go into freefall. Not him again. He was fucking haunting him from the grave. "What were they doing with Priotech?"

Bob looked like he might be holding something back, but if he was, he couldn't force it out of him. Damn it. "He didn't know. All he knew was Primafacie was financing a project known as "Alter", that they thought would be huge."

Logan looked at him expectantly, gestured impatiently with his hands. "So what was this Alter project about?"

"He didn't know. All the corporate spies sent to have a look see have never contacted them or returned."

That didn't sound good. In fact, it sounded slightly south of horrible. "The Org?" he asked, although it was hardly a question.

"The Org," Bob agreed, with a weary sigh.

So they killed all those people in cold blood? He should have guessed.

They liked to haunt him from beyond the grave too.

8

Logan was exhausted, but of course he refused to admit it.

Since he'd been up since he gave Angel his new flat back in L.A., and was on vamp hunting duties that very night, he hadn't slept for at least twenty four hours, but honestly he was holding up well. Logan had lots of experience not sleeping, and his healing factor kept the black circles from becoming too unruly, and his eyes never became bloodshot.

Bob didn't want to push him, but he needed Logan to have a clear head and a fully functioning healing factor. As soon as they reached the mansion, he told him, "Tell them you have to crash for a few minutes because you're beat. You'll sleep for an hour, and feel totally refreshed." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Dream of something enlightening." Better than having him wake up screaming, and if he had a happy dream, he'd know he'd been pushed.

Logan did as he was told. He started yawning uncontrollably, and cursed himself under his breath for his "weakness" before Scott met them in the foyer and scowled. "I can help," Bob told him, trying to short circuit any argument.

Logan made his excuse and disappeared, heading down the hall to his room, still yawning. Scott watched him go, then turned back and gave him a hard stare, hidden by his visor. "You did that, didn't you?"

Sometimes he was too clever by half. "He's been up for over a day. He needs the rest."

"I'm sure he does, but that's not what I asked."

Bob gave him a deliberately irritating, shit eating grin. "But isn't it what you should know?"

He just knew Scott was giving a death stare from behind those red shades, but he just turned away with a mild sneer. "So why did you get him out of the way?"

"Wait 'til we're in the office."

He did, but mainly because he didn't have a choice. Xavier was there, red nosed and stuffy, looking over a file on his desk. He was parked behind it, and in the filtered light coming from through the sheer white curtains, he looked like some kind of holy figure on a Franklin Mint collector's plate. Xavier looked up, and squinted slightly from the pain, proving he still got it even when he wasn't in full god mode. That old Belial psychic thing was really something. "You feel much better," he told him, and Xavier's squint seemed to ease. Scott gave him a look that was hard to interpret, but said nothing, and took a position just behind and to the right of Xavier's desk, crossing his arms over his chest. His stance was so defensive he looked like a bodyguard, and Bob found that rather amusing. Not only was it probably on the money, but it was funny, because Scott had to know that there was nothing he could do against him if he decided to be belligerent and otherwise a complete asshole.

Xavier glanced at the closed door of his office before asking, "Logan's not joining us?"

"Not immediately. I thought we best investigate this on our own before we let him in. This might upset him."

Xavier's cool blue eyes bored into him. Maybe he couldn't read him without hurting himself, but that didn't make him scared of him. "What have you discovered?"

"A connection between Primotech Pharmaceuticals and the Organization. I told him about that, but left out one of the details I learned about Project Alter that I thought we could try and prove or disprove before we clue him in."

Scott's posture relaxed, betraying the confusion that was crystal clear in Xavier's expression. "What is it, Bob?"

"Project Alter, according to the CEO I talked to, involved immortality. They'd isolated a hyperactive self-repair gene and were working on using it in Human test subjects."

Xavier didn't seem to grasp it for a second, but then his eyes widened ever so slightly. "Oh my god. That's why Cerebro picked it up."

"What?" Scott asked, not yet following the line of thought.

Bob clued him in. "The repair gene they isolated - the supposed "immortality" gene - is Logan's. The Organization must have given it Primotech for experimentation."

And, somehow - in some way - accidentally released a plague that killed everyone it touched.

* * *

Logan felt the heat before opening his eyes, smelled the sweat and sex and the virus and the desert heat of her flesh. He could feel her shivering so violently - in spite of the fact that she was radiating heat like a fresh ember, and sweating like a cold beer under a heat lamp - that the trembling woke him up. Either that, or with the wind; the breeze had come up outside, and was now howling, shaking the truck very slightly.

He pulled her closer, trying to warm her with his body heat, aware of the inherent contradiction of trying to warm someone who seemed too hot to live, and yet fevers were like that. Well, to his limited knowledge.

Elena stirred, her warm face snuggling against his chest, and muttered, "Tell me again how stupid it is crossing the Yukon in winter."

Well, there was no doubting that, was there? He pulled the blankets - one of which was actually a sliced open sleeping bag (it had much more in thermal qualities than most blankets) - over her, and let them slide off of him, because she was making him sweat. No one should be that hot - how the hell was she still alive? Not that he was complaining about that. "I've done stupider things." He had extremely vague memories of crossing a mountain on foot - and naked, at least for a bit. Were they memories? They seemed so vague and choppy now, like a half-remembered dream. Maybe that was typical of the insane. Oh hell, it had to be - didn't that explain all the holes in his memories? When you were fucked in the head, nothing worked right.

She looked up at him with her sleepy eyes, glazed from the fever that was literally baking her from the inside out. The funny thing was, she still looked pretty; Elena Brannon must have been a really looker before this thing took over. Whatever this "thing" was exactly. Even flushed, sweaty, and virus ravaged, she was among the best looking women he had ever picked up at a truck stop. Both figuratively and literally. "Somehow I doubt that."

"Soldiers tried to shoot me with a surface-to-surface missile earlier. I knew they had it, and I let 'em."

She had to think about that for a moment. "Okay, yeah, that's pretty stupid."

"I'm Captain Stupid, believe me. But you can't call me that."

She smiled faintly, and he could see the struggle within her eyes. She was fighting to stay conscious, and he had no idea why. Why was she fighting at all? The odds against her at this point weren't overwhelming, they were astronomical. If she was at all sensible, she would be trying to spend her last days in a more calm and reasonable manner, but no, she kept fighting against an enemy she couldn't possibly beat. And for some bizarre reason, he found that wildly attractive. (Also, vaguely familiar …)

"I guess I should be glad I'm the only one with this," she said, burying her face against his chest once more.

"Huh?"

"Whatever they gave me. I should be glad it's not contagious and killing everyone I encounter, right?"

He considered that a moment, and figured she was trying to look on the bright side of things. If not being a typhoid Mary was the best you could do, you knew your life had turned to absolute shit. "I guess. Wouldn't have hurt me anyways."

She scoffed so faintly it could have been a cough. Her breath felt hot and dry against his skin. "I know. Y'know, in spite of the fact that I've seen you hurt and shrug it off, I still expected to see scars." Her hand skimmed down his chest, moving to his back, illustrating by touch the areas she expected to see crisscrossed by a network of old wounds. "I'm still surprised that your skin is so soft. You don't even callous, do you?"

For some reason, this topic made him desperately uncomfortable. "No. Nothing seems to stick to me."

"I wish that was true for me."

"I wish I could give it to ya."

She paused long enough that he thought she had finally succumbed to the fever, but not just yet. She was delirious, though; he could hear it in her voice. "You're not the kind of guy I'm usually attracted to, you know."

"Gee, thanks." But considering they'd already had sex, he suppose he'd swayed her in the end.

"But I'm wondering what I missed. You make me feel safe. I haven't felt safe in so long; I hadn't realized I missed it …"

She trailed off, and when her body went limp, he knew she had finally passed out - or fallen back to sleep rather suddenly. He touched her face, her hot and dry skin, and kissed her on the top of the head. She reminded him of someone - of some woman - but not physically, and he had no idea whom. Up until this point, he knew most women physically, and didn't know them long enough to get their personality. So who did she remind him of?

And why did he want so desperately to save her life?

Logan woke up in his room at Xavier's, stretching as he sat up. He had no idea why he was so tired - maybe he was getting old, in a manner of speaking - and the memory of Elena had made him feel slightly miserable. But he knew now who El had reminded him of back then - Mariko. A stubborn, doomed woman, determined to fight a battle she couldn't win. In both cases, he helped them in their fight, and in both cases, they died, while he lived on.

His code name should be the "Black Widower". It was probably more appropriate than Wolverine.

He went and had a piss, then threw cold water on his face, rubbing it through his hair, subconsciously still feeling the heat from Elena's fever wracked body. Then he suddenly began to wonder if his unconscious was trying to tell him something by dredging up that bittersweet memory. What had she said? _"I should be glad it's not contagious and killing everyone I encounter, right?"_

She was talking about Eden Biotechnics. But what if the Organization had given up on using sentient mutants for weapons? Holy shit. You couldn't put anything past them, and the fact that Stryker was dead was of no consequence; there were dozens of crazed zealots happy to fill his shoes.

He left his room and traced everyone to the downstairs area, the silver metal hallways of their "super secret" base. Bob met him in the corridor, eyes bright but guarded, even though he put on his usual larrikin air. "Heya mate, feelin' better?"

"Yeah, in a manner of speaking. Hey, you didn't push me, did ya?"

"Me? Hell no. I know you'd cut me if I did that. Well, _try _and cut me, at any rate." He gave him a cheeky grin that wouldn't have been out of place on a used car salesman, and Logan wondered if it meant he was lying or telling the truth. With Bob, they were often one and the same anyways.

"Have you figured out anything new since I was sacked out?"

Bob clicked his tongue, and started to guide him down the hall. "Well, kinda. A new scan by Cerebro has turned up bupkis, but I found the home base of Primafacie and thought we could give 'em a nice, personal visit."

He had been prepared to be told they'd found nothing, so the fact that they were actually on the verge of doing something was a relief. "Great. Who is "we" though?"

"Just you an' me, for the moment. Seemed safest."

He nodded, then wondered about that. "Safest? So you think it's some kinda biological weapon too?"

Bob gave him a strange sidelong glance. "Biological weapon?"

"It'd make sense, wouldn't it? The Organization is all about controlling and killing mutants. I'm surprised they haven't done it before."

Bob nodded, but muscles in his jaw seemed to twitch, and Logan knew he was holding out on him. "What?"

Bob glanced at him, something suspicious and hidden in his eyes. "The Organization is, in a curiously warped way, a type of business. Even as a deeper than black project, it couldn't totally depend on the government to fund it in total."

Logan stopped, and Bob did too, looking back at him. "You got something' to say, Bob?"

He shrugged casually, everything about his face expressing a guilelessness that Bob had never had in his entire life, even in infancy. "Just that you can't discount their need to make money. Money is a root of evil shit as often as power and vengeance. Something to keep in mind."

He studied him warily, wishing he could force Bob to just say what he meant. "You have a point. Just make it."

Bob shrugged, held his hands wide in acquiescence. "It's just that sometimes the evilest things have the most appallingly simple and mundane explanations."

He scrutinized him, unable to believe his feigned innocence and obliviousness, and wondered if he punched Bob now, could he land it? And would it hurt him? "You know what it is," he decided, angry and disappointed. "Just spit it out."

"Honestly, we don't know. All we have is speculation. That's why I want to go to Primafacie and confirm a supposition."

"Which is what?"

Bob hesitated, clearly not wanting to say anything. But after a moment he sighed, shoulders sagging in surrender, and admitted, "That the Organization did none of this deliberately - they just fucked up big time."

He stared at him in disbelief. "Are you actually claiming they're innocent?"

'They've never been innocent. But I don't think this was ever the intended end result."

He was holding back on him; there was a lot he wasn't saying. He wrung his hands together, trying to quell the urge to pop his claws or deck this obfuscating son of a bitch. "What was, then?"

"Financial solvency? A panacea? I don't honestly know. That's what I want to find out."

A panacea? That threw him - where had that come from? He was about to ask, but Bob grabbed his arm, and uttered a spell that caused reality to collapse in on itself, before suddenly reasserting itself and spitting them out elsewhere. He stumbled slightly as they appeared in what appeared to be either a small meeting room or a large office. It was mostly empty, with just an austere clutch of furniture scattered across the wide space - an oaken desk, leather executive chair, smaller metal framed chairs that seemed to be upholstered with the same industrial gray carpeting that covered the floor, a black plastic table tucked pointlessly in one corner. There was a large window overlooking what appeared to be some type of smelter, with smoke pouring out of slender cylindrical stacks. It appeared to be the industrial midlands of England out there, the gray and dreary part that never made the tourist brochures, but had a tendency to show up in depressing British films.

There was a man behind the desk, but he didn't notice them right away. He was working on a boxy computer, typing furiously at a wireless keyboard, a slightly bloated looking man with a perfectly round head and a balding pate, a thin fringe of brown hair surrounding his scalp like a dead laurel wreath. "Don't even think about callin' security," Bob ordered.

The man now looked up at them, his brown eyes widening, and he jumped to his feet, rapidly, as if hit in the ass with a taser. But the worse part was he seemed to look past Bob, and focus squarely on him.

"Patient zero," the man gasped, like he was staring at a ghost.


	5. Chapter 5

"What the fuck did you call me?" Logan demanded, now more confused then ever.

"You're not goin' anywhere," Bob told the pudgy middle manager. When Logan started forward, Bob grabbed his arm. "You neither."

He scowled at him and yanked his arm out of his grip. "What the fuck is this about?"

Bob glanced at the man standing stock still behind his desk, framed by the spewing smoke stacks beyond him, and said, "Why do you recognize Logan here?"

The man's eyes never focused. They were staring at a distant point somewhere behind them, just over and beyond their shoulders. So the whole "push" thing wasn't a god power, it was just a Belial one, huh? He always wondered. "He's the source of gene MSR-10504."

"Source?" he repeated, anger warring with confusion. He knew the Organization had isolated his healing factor, as they gave it to Chimera. But what did this have to do with anything?

"What was Project Alter all about?" Bob asked.

"Trying to find out if there was a way to guarantee Human immortality genetically. There were problems, though. The project had to be outsourced."

""What kind of problems?"

"MSR-10504 didn't correspond to any regular Human gene our people were able to find. Attempts to create a simulacrum in mice ended badly."

"How badly?"

"They all died."

Logan had started to say something, but stopped. They all died? What, like all those people off the island of Aero?

Bob continued with his strangely mild third degree. "What did they die of?"

"Unknown. It was assumed that there just wasn't a rodent analog for this gene, and too much alteration to fit caused too much damage."

"So you thought moving it to Human subjects was wise?"

"We didn't. The study was outsourced to people with more experience in gene technologies."

"Priotech Pharmaceuticals?" It really wasn't a question, it just sounded like one.

"Yes."

"Hold on a second," Logan interrupted, anger winning out. "Are you saying this is all related to me? That the Organization killed those people with my fucking genes?"

Bob's look was measured and kind, which was a warning in and of itself. "Not necessarily. I believe they were experimenting with it, and there was an inadvertent side effect."

"What, like death?" He shook his head, still not quite getting this. "How the fuck do you kill someone with a gene? They're not contagious!"

Bob hesitated. "Not normally, no."

He glared at him, a promise of bloody death he couldn't technically deliver - not while Bob had powers, at any rate. "Do I have to beat the explanation out of you?"

"In gene therapy, viral vectors are often used to deliver a gene to its targeted source. Now, these viruses are usually emasculated and harmless, used as a carrier for DNA only, but ... there could be mutations. It's not beyond the realm of possibility."

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly out his nose. Jesus Christ, he didn't even work for the Org anymore, and they were still using him as a killer. "They created a plague?"

"Not intentionally. And the truth is, we don't know how contagious this is. How quickly did the mice die after being altered, mate?"

The man seemed to realize he was talking to him. "Almost instantaneously."

"Symptoms?"

"None. Autopsies revealed they had massive aneurysms in their brains. It was like a major vessel just exploded."

What? There would have been signs if the Humans on Aero died like that ... no, wait. Only if it took them a couple of minutes to die. If death was almost instantaneous - a sudden sharp headache, then Boom, goodnight nurse - there wouldn't necessarily be any signs left on their body. An autopsy would be a different story; an autopsy would show the blow out in their brain, perhaps a segment with a pudding like consistency. There was cold comfort to be had in the possibility that they felt little to no pain, that their deaths were probably so quick they had no idea what had happened to them.

"Well, that's good, I suppose," Bob muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"What d'ya mean that's good?"

"It's good 'cause if the virus or whatever the hell it is kills people almost instantaneously, it's limiting the ground its carriers can cover. Viruses that take days or weeks to kill you - Ebola for example - give its carriers ample time to spread it around, ensure its survival beyond the death of the host. This will naturally limit its effects."

"Assuming it actually dies with the host. What if it doesn't?"

Bob considered that with a twisted grimace, shrugging half-heartedly. "It's a slim possibility, but considerin' it has its roots in you, I guess its possible. But you felt no effects when you visited the island, right?"

"Right - but if it is part of me, wouldn't I be fucking immune to it?"

That got him. "Yeah, okay, you gotta point."

Logan went right up to the man's desk, and felt like putting his fist through it, but since Bob still had a stranglehold on the man's mind, it'd have no effect on him. It was still tempting anyways. "What did Priotech do? What were they gonna do with my genes?"

"Answer him," Bob ordered.

"I don't know. As soon as it was outsourced, we were cut out of the loop. We had no need to know."

"Who can tell us?" Bob interjected.

The man paused, long enough that you might think he was trying to resist control, but he was actually just trying to remember. "Doctor Bernhard Schultz, the head of Priotech labs, I suppose."

"And where do we find him?"

"Corporate headquarters in Stockholm."

"What did you people do to me?" Logan demanded, so angry his claws felt like they were coming out on their own.

"Nothing. We simply worked on your salvaged gene. We only saw you in a file."

"Bullshit."

"Mate, you know he can't lie," Bob said, in a gentle voice that suggested he was on the verge of pushing him.

Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe it would be even better if he made him forget all of this. His rage was like vomit moving up his throat, and he didn't think he could hold it back much longer. "When does it stop?" He shouted at him, figuring Bob was a better target than the mindfucked functionary, as he would be immune to all of it. "When do they stop fucking using me!"

Bob shook his head, and glanced down at the carpet, perhaps to avoid his eyes. "Logan -"

"Don't you even try and calm me down! I'm tired of it! I have died a thousand times, I have killed these fuckers, and they keep coming back and finding new ways to rape me! When does it stop!"

Bob fixed him with a steady look, trying very hard to keep the pity out of his eyes. "When we stop it. And we will."

"Bullshit! We haven't stopped it yet, Bob, and it ain't gonna happen! It's … it's like this fucking immortal beast! We can't kill it! We can't even slow it down!" He could feel himself flushing with rage, he could feel himself edging towards hysteria, but he was spinning out of control. This was his fault - this was all his fault. He killed those people, and he never even saw them before they were corpses splayed out on a quaint cobblestone street. The Organization used him to kill them, and he wasn't even on the same continent.

He felt the most minute vibration, growing in intensity, and when the window began to rattle in its frame, he knew that there was a helicopter or something coming in. He turned towards the window, eager to vent his rage, but the thing that dropped into view, hovering so close to the window that you could see it shaking like gelatin, warping in its frame, wasn't a helicopter. It was the nose of the X jet, the body settling into a hover on a cushion of air just beyond the building. After a moment, a voice came over what sounded like a loudspeaker. "At what point did you decide that you were going to do this without me?"

Scooter. Just what he needed right now, Captain Buzzkill to bug him. He slammed his fist on the desk, hard enough to do some damage but not enough to break anything. "Can you get rid of him?"

The corner of Bob's mouth quirked up in a half smile. "What, and lose our lift to Stockholm?"

Oh goddamn it. This was just what he needed.

9

Scott was a little ticked off, but in a somewhat passive aggressive way; instead of shouting or threatening to punch them, he just glared at them from behind his visor, muscles in his jaw taut, arms crossed over his chest. "I didn't appreciate the disappearing act," he said flatly.

Logan glared back at him, with an intensity that could have made grapes wither on the vine, but Scott was too accustomed to it to seem affected. "I could kill you, you know that? In more ways than one." He stalked off to the back of the jet, leaving him and Scott alone in the cockpit.

"Tell me something I don't know," Scott replied to the sealed door.

Bob shrugged with his hands. "He isn't in a good mood right now."

"He's never in a good mood," he responded, turning back to the control panel. "So where are we going?"

"Stockholm. And make it extra snappy. I've made everyone we encountered forget we were here, but somebody else might notice the jet leaving."

He sighed, resigned to taking an order from him for now, and his hands moved over the panel quickly, pulling them up and out into the overcast blue-grey sky. Bob had to grab the back of his pilot's chair to keep from losing his footing. "What's in Stockholm?"

"Priotech's home base, and some Doc named Bernhard Schultz."

"Bad guy?"

"Most likely. Probably the source of our little plague here." He slipped into the co-pilot's seat, and Scott seemed determined not to look at him. How funny. "We're gonna have to give Logan his space for a while, 'kay? He's not in a good place."

"He's never -"

"Please don't make that joke."

Scott briefly glanced at him with a small grimace, but then turned his gaze back towards the clouds streaming past them, torn like filmy spider webs He was silent, and Bob let it be until he was willing to break it. "I don't get it. Xavier's friend says there's something unusual in the blood that Logan brought back, but he can't say what; it just seems like broken protein strands. And genes aren't contagious."

"No, but as I said, there's the viral vector to consider."

"But even then …"

"So what's this man's synopsis?"

He slumped back in his seat. "He didn't have one."

There was a rather loud, dull "bang" from the back, which made them both jump. A quick scan of the instruments showed that nothing had changed - it was Logan, punching or kicking something. Scott toggled an intercom switch, and said, "Don't damage hull integrity."

Logan didn't get on comm, but they could still hear his "Go fuck yourself!" loud and clear, reverberating through the body of the plane.

"The guy down there confirmed they were working on using Logan's genes for immortality experiments."

"And?"

"Apparently it killed every gene altered mouse they created."

Scott exhaled heavily, shaking his head. "That's not good. It's the exact opposite of what they were trying to do - how did that happen? Could they have screwed up that bad?"

"In the beginning, yes, but you'd think they'd have learned something after that."

They continued to sit there in absolute silence, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as before. After a moment, Scott asked him, "Does that feel like a clue to you too?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't seem to lead anywhere. Still, I think there's something there, if you look at it the right way." That was the worst part - he was Isure/I that was vital, and not a failing of Primafacie. But how? Genes weren't toxic; even Scorpion, with his poison glands, wouldn't have some kind of poisonous gene. So why did analogues of Logan's healing factor kill them, and then the people off the coast of Denmark? A piece of the puzzle was missing, or it was just too obscure to be visible right now.

"And the right way is ..?"

"Fuck me sideways if I know, mate. I'm hopin' old Bernhard will have some more answers for us."

"What if he doesn't?"

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." There was another thud from the back, but it was dull and not quite as resonant as the last one.

"Can't you tell him to calm down?"

"I could, but it would come out later on. Besides, he has a right to be angry, and we can use that to our advantage."

If Bob could have seen his eyes, he knew that Scott would have been said to be looking at him askance. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I think it would be in all of our best interests to let Logan go in alone. We give him five minutes, and then follow."

Scott paled visibly, muscles working beneath his skin. "That's a death sentence for those people and you know it."

"Not necessarily. Besides, it'll be the best therapy for Logan right now, and it's our best bet at retaining hull integrity."

Bob knew he wasn't exaggerating either, but he was aware that he might have to give Scott a little push to get him to go along with it. Scott should have understood, though, without having to be told - when you were totally divested of any power, the only way to regain any sense of personal safety and sanctity was to take some power back. Sometimes, that was just a tad on the bloody side.

* * *

The home base of Priotech was just one spire like skyscraper in a small sea of similar skyscrapers in downtown Stockholm. Oh, some outer aesthetic touches let you know this wasn't an American city, but one with history and some lingering touch of civility, but Priotech didn't make itself stand out in any way at all, which made Logan instantly suspicious. Trust no one who engaged in urban camouflage when they didn't technically need to.

The city almost gave him a sense of déjà vu. Almost. It was frustrating to think he may have been here before, at one time or another, but he would be the last person to know. It made him that much more angry, and he honestly didn't think he could get much angrier. He already thought he was going to explode from it, that the rage was a physical thing that could burst through his skin and leave him behind, like an empty shell.

The day was clear and slightly cool, the warmth of the sun on his skin a pleasurable sensation that threatened to be distracting. Well, for a moment; anger was starting to make him numb. He didn't know why Scott agreed to this plan, he assumed Bob had given him a push, but he honestly didn't care. It was more troubling that Bob thought that this would be good for him, and that he was probably right.

He walked straight into the wide glass double doors of Priotech's home, entering a large marble lobby with sparse but tasteful furniture in polished mahogany or cool aluminum, save for the front desk, which was a huge curve of whitewashed wood. Seated behind it was a stern faced young woman with milk blonde hair, piled up on top of her head in a complicated knot. Did he speak Swedish? He couldn't remember. Well, now he'd find out.

She looked at him sharply, her blue eyes coolly disdainful (what, wasn't he dressed right). "May I help you, sir?"

She wasn't speaking English, but he could understand her, so Swedish must have been on his list. Good. "I need to talk to Bernhard Schultz, now."

"Do you have an appointment?"

He couldn't help snicker. "I don't need an appointment. He has my genes, and I have visitation rights." He walked right past her desk, heading for a bank of elevators at the very back of the lobby.

She stood, saying, "Sir, you must have an appointment. Doctor Schultz is a very busy man." At the same time, he heard a small, high pitched tone that he knew was a "silent" alarm, alerting security. So he wasn't surprised that large men in dark suits swarmed out of side passages, blocking his passage to the elevator. For the moment, they just stood there, making a Human shield. There were six of them - for now, at any rate.

A big one who looked like the poster boy for hearty Aryan youth said, with a kind of stiff politeness, "Please step back, sir. There doesn't need to be any trouble."

He shook his head, feeling slightly bad for kid. He just didn't know what he was in for. "There's already trouble, bub. Now get outta my way, and I won't hurt you."

One of the guards pulled out a boxy looking taser, and another followed suit, as the line broke and converged on him from both sides. He shook his head, wondering about the kids today, and grabbed the man who had pulled his taser. He had a hold of wrist and simply twisted, snapping it clean, and before he could shout he kicked him in the stomach and let him go, so he stumbled full into some of his friends.

He felt them trying to flank him, he was aware of where every single one of them was in relation to him, all his senses painting a picture that he hardly needed to be conscious of to register. He threw back a hard elbow, nailing someone in the face, and he stomped on someone's knee, making it crack and bend the wrong way, teasing a scream of pain out of its owner. He was vaguely aware that other guards had joined the scrum, but it didn't matter.

Another taser came for him, crackling like something frying on the stove, and he snatched it out of his hand and jabbed it into a random guard, as two men grabbed his right arm, and two others grabbed his left, trying to pull his arms back and restrain him. The Aryan youth poster boy grabbed him around the neck, and he slammed his head back in a reverse head butt, breaking his nose with a strangely delicate "snap", and he felt warm blood gush on the back of his neck before Blondie stumbled away. He stomped on the foot of a guard holding his left arm, then threw his elbow, catching him flush in the throat, and he was loose once more. A couple of punches and a kick or two later, and it was down to him and a single guard, who viewed his wounded companions spread out on the floor with more shock than genuine fear.

Logan just waited to see what he would do, staring back at him coldly. Finally, the guard said, "You're one of them, aren't you?"

_Them. _Like he was the monster in this scenario, like he was the one who had killed all those people in Denmark, like he was the one doing unconscionable medical experiments on people who may not have known what they were getting into. Like he had been the one who had stolen genes from them. He glared at the guard, lowering his head but never moving his eyes, and growled, "I haven't even unleashed my power yet. You wanna see it?"

The Swedish were generally a sensible people, with a few notable exceptions, so he wasn't surprised when the guard just stood stock still for a moment, then broke and ran. He was probably going for more back up, but it didn't matter to him. He'd fight 'em all, and it'd never be close to a contest.

"See? I told you he wouldn't kill them all," Bob said, as he and Scott walked into the lobby. Bob looked at the receptionist behind the desk, who was now on the telephone, and said, "Hang that up and sit down. There's nothing to be alarmed about."

She did as she said, almost robotically, and sat placidly in her chair, hands folded in her lap.

"They look dead to me," Scott grumbled.

"They're making noise. The dead generally don't."

"These are just wage monkeys, earnin' a paycheck," Logan snapped. "I wouldn't kill 'em for makin' a bad job choice. But all the bets are off for Schultz."

Scott shook his and frowned, continuing to view the devastation with open disapproval, but Bob looked unmoved and almost serene, like a god was supposed to look. He crouched down, and asked Aryan youth, "What floor is Doctor Schultz on?"

"Eighteen." Of course, with his broken nose, it sounded like he said _Eigheeb_.

Scott's eyebrows drew down in puzzlement. "You speak Swedish?"

Bob was speaking it too? Weird - Logan heard him as speaking English. "Enough to get a deep massage and a good chocolate bar," Bob replied, standing up. "Let's say we drop in on Schultzie and give him a fine how-dya-do, eh?"

"I'm not killing him," Scott pointed out, although he followed Bob towards the elevator bank, stepping delicately over the fallen men.

"You don't have to," Logan replied. "Just stay the fuck outta my way."

He knew Scott was giving him the evil eye, he could feel it like a pressure on his back, but he was past giving a fuck about Scott's feelings.

Schultz had killed a bunch of people - possibly Marcus among them - and he'd used a piece of him to do it. If that didn't demand a pound of flesh, nothing ever did.


	6. Chapter 6

10

Bob stood at the back of the elevator as they rode up to the eighteenth floor, while he and Logan stood on either side, and Bob started singing softly to himself by the time they passed the second floor. "It's replayed with precision and care. Why are you even talking, you weren't even there. So I glower and plot … I will wreck you."

Was that a general comment on things? Logan's theme song? Bob just being an asshole? That last one was most likely.

Logan ignored him, he was probably used to Bob singing at inappropriate times, but his fists were so tightly clenched Scott thought he could see a shadow of his claws beneath his skin. Veins stood out on his arms like worms, and he looked like he was about to physically explode out of his skin. As the elevator came to a stop - finally - Bob said, apropos of nothing, "Let me take the first wave."

Logan grunted, which was presumably an answer, and the doors slid open to reveal more security guards with tasers and truncheons, braced like riot police. "Goodnight," Bob told them, and the half dozen out front keeled over, much to the shock of those behind them, who backed up a step.

Logan launched himself at them with a roar, shoving past the narcoleptic, and Scott briefly considered shooting him with an eye beam, but he hadn't popped his claws. He was just plowing through the guards with his bare hands, showing absolutely no finesse but a clearly targeted brutality that took the guards out fast. One hard punch to the throat, a palm to the nose, a backhand to the temple, an elbow to the forehead, and the guards went down, pretty much out of the fight. Wasn't pretty or organized, but he was a pit fighting champion for a reason.

As he and Bob stepped out onto the floor, avoiding the bodies of the sleeping or injured men, Bob groaned. "This isn't good."

Scott looked around, but all he could see - beyond the obvious violence - was an almost austerely furnished office hallway, with a window wall looking out over the city of Stockholm, bathed in a mildly blue tinged light due to an overcast sky, and it was undeniably beautiful. This was a lovely city, impossibly clean, and it occurred to him that he would like to stay here for a while, see the sights. Wasn't going to happen, but it would have been nice. "What? Logan beating the shit out of people? I agree with you."

"No, not that. He's not here."

"Who's not here?"

Logan had reached the end of the hall ahead of them, not so much shoving the large doors of a palatial office open as nearly breaking them down, but the only thing inside it, besides expensive furniture, was a young, lanky man with a mop of pale brown hair and undeniably terrified look on his face. "Schultz," Logan growled, heading straight for him.

The kid - who couldn't have been more than twenty two - backed up quickly and said, panicked, "He's not here! I - I don't know where he is!"

"Bullshit!" Logan replied, grabbing the kid by the throat.

"Tell us where he is," Bob said quickly, so Logan didn't have time to manhandle him.

The boy's brown eyes were wide and wild, staring at Logan like he was a nightmare made flesh, but Bob somehow got to him anyways. "He's in Sareaux . He was supposed to be back two days ago, but he never showed up, and he hasn't called. I've been covering for him, they think he's here, but I'm starting to worry."

"Sareaux?" Bob repeated, as if he knew the place. He had that over him. "In Luxembourg?"

The boy nodded vigorously. "He's been working on a secret project there."

"Did he say what it was about?" Logan asked, shaking the boy like a rag doll.

"No. He just said it would make us rich."

Logan threw him aside in disgust, and turned to face Bob with a rather deadly look on his face. "You know where this Sareaux is?"

Bob nodded. "It's in the Ardennes Mountain range, in the Northern part of Luxembourg. There's not a lot there, beside some ski resorts and chateaus for the wealthy."

Logan seemed to think for a minute, his eyes turning inward, and after a moment, his shoulders sagged. "Fuck. The Ardennes. That means it's on the border with Belgium, right?"

Bob nodded, and Scott seemed to understand where Logan was going with this. Scandinavian Air made trips to Belgium, didn't they? And Belgium really wasn't that far from Denmark. All the pieces fell into place. It was a perfectly obscure hiding place, wasn't it? No one ever thought of Luxembourg ever; it was such a small country that never made any trouble, it was easy to forget it existed. If he was an evil jerk, that's exactly where he'd build his fortress. You could probably hang a big sign that said "Evil Hideout" in bright neon letters, and yet you'd never be bothered, except whenever the country did its routine census. And even then, they'd just want to know how many people in your hideout had their own car.

There was something Bob wasn't saying, though. He was so anxious to leave he transported them back to the jet with a spell, and Logan stalked to the back while he and Bob got set up in the pilot and co-pilot seats again. "Is this another dead end, or are we going to hit the end of the line?" Scott asked, genuinely curious.

"Luxembourg has a tendency to be the end of the line," Bob replied, sounding preoccupied. Was that a joke? He turned towards him, cobalt eyes bright and curious. "Jean kept medical records on all of you, right?"

The mention of Jean made his heart skip a beat, made his stomach clench, and he was obscurely angry at him for even saying her name, but why? It was an innocent enough question. "Basically, yeah. Why?"

"What's on Logan's file?"

Scott stared at him, feeling like he was missing something again. "How the hell would I know?"

"She talked to you about such things, whether you liked it or not," Bob said, and his voice was strangely hypnotic. "Tell me what she said."

Suddenly he was there. He could recall it vividly, not so much a memory as it was a form of time travel.

He was sitting at the dining room table in the sun room with Jean, eating lunch, keeping an occasional eye on the British and Asian kids struggling to play a game of cricket on the side lawn. The problem was no one was sure of all the rules, so the end result was a game more like a hybrid of croquet and field hockey, but the kids seemed to enjoy the sense of chaos, even if it made keeping score extremely difficult.

He was picking at his salad, trying to find the chunks of feta cheese (the only think he really liked about it), while Jean munched on fruit slices and seemed totally preoccupied. She was staring out the window, but she wasn't looking at the kids, but past them. A slant of sun shone on her hair, making it look like a deep crimson fall of silk. "Next time Logan comes back, I need you to help me talk him into letting me do a full medical sequence on him."

He scoffed, spearing a crumbling chunk of feta with his fork. "Is he coming back? Pity."

"Scott," she said warningly, looking at him across the table.

"Look, haven't you done a sequence on him already?"

"I've done a scan, not a sequence. I took some base readings, but they were … not as illuminating as I'd hoped."

A "sequence", in Jean speak, was a whole battery of tests: blood work, cardiogram, organ function, everything up to - but not necessarily ruling out - an EEG. "But you had him in your lab a while before he woke up. Didn't you get anything then?"

"I got a number of things. Which is the problem."

He chewed his chunk of feta, considering that, and wondered if he should be bothered at the light in her eyes. It was the look she got when she had found a new puzzle she just had to solve, and it was worrisome, because she got very passionate and obsessive about her puzzles. Damn it - if Logan could just be straightforward and not at all mysterious, she wouldn't even think twice about him. Was that too much to ask? "I don't understand."

"When you brought him in, he had a high fever, and his blood pressure and heart rate was astonishingly high, but continued to drop steadily for no obvious reason - at the time. I did figure out it was a result of his healing factor; for a few seconds, I worried he might be on the verge of a heart attack."

"So the readings are skewed?"

"They're incomplete. I have no idea what his base blood pressure is, nor his regular heart rate. All I can tell you is that when he's healing from a severe trauma, they can both spike into near critical levels."

"Uh, wouldn't that make things worse?"

She glanced down at her plate, searching for another tangerine wedge. She found one and stabbed it through the middle, making a small sputter of juice spit out. "You'd think, but he's not normal, Scott."

"Wow, really? And here I thought he was just into helmet hair."

She looked back at him, scowling, which he expected. But how could he resist a joke like that? "Ha ha. See, that's the problem I'm having. What would be fatal for us isn't for him, and I'm not just talking about stab wounds. His body has a different threshold of acceptability, what it can tolerate and what it can't. His base rate is probably normal - more or less - but his upper limit might be amazingly high. It goes back to what makes his healing factor work, I think, but I'd like to study him more to prove it."

He really didn't want her "studying" him, but he didn't know why. He trusted Jean; she wouldn't be even remotely attracted to the hairy train wreck that was Logan. But she might be attracted to the puzzle he represented. "You have no theories?"

A blur of a red ball flew past the window, and the argument of whether that was in or out began. The funny thing was, none of the kids sounded too passionate about it either way. Jean twirled her fork on her plate for a moment, lost in thought. "I do. I think it's his metabolism."

He shook his head, not sure he was following this, but then again, the medical stuff was her arena. Now if they were talking about cars, he could more than keep up. "What do you mean?"

"It's like your body has adapted to absorb and convert solar radiation. I believe there's something very fundamentally different about how his body works. I think his metabolism can literally shift itself to fit whatever his needs are. If it needs to move into a hyperactive speed to help him heal, it does, with no physical consequences to him; his body can easily adapt to a shift that would kill a normal person. If it needs to slow down to a crawl, it can do that too, and again there will be no adverse after-effects. Remember that coma he fell into after Rogue drained him? His body functions, save for breathing, fell to a complete bare minimum for life, but I never needed to set up an i.v. or a catheter. I don't want to get graphic, but his kidneys basically all but stopped functioning, but weren't damaged in the least. It was like he dropped into some form of biological stasis until his body could repair the majority of the damage, and then his functions started coming back across the board. His body can take more then external shocks; he can take internal stresses as well. He could have a stroke, heal, and never even know it - if indeed he can _have_ a stroke, which I honestly doubt."

"So he has a gear shift metabolism?" She grimaced at him, like he was making a bad joke, but he was serious. "Can he control it? I mean, can he "will" it into high gear or low?"

She considered that a moment, but was forced to shrug. "I think it's autonomic, but I really don't know. That's why I'd like to run a full sequence on him, when he isn't injured or actively healing in some fashion."

He shook his head, peripherally aware the kids had decided to flip a coin to settle their argument. Now they were arguing over who would supply the coin. "First of all, he never listens to a goddamn thing I say. Secondly, considering he was … augmented or whatever by those people, he hates medical tests, doesn't he? So how are you going to talk him into being poked, prodded, and stabbed with needles for an hour or two?"

She sighed glumly, and sat back in her chair, lips twisting at the though. "That's why I was asking for your help. I can't think of a way to make Logan go along with it."

"I'm the wrong person to ask. Ask the Professor; he can give him a telepathic nudge."

She raised an eyebrow at that, and shook her head. "If I didn't know you were kidding, I'd kick you under the table."

"Good thing I'm kidding, huh?" he said, giving her a brilliant smile.

She shook her head once more and looked away out the window, so he couldn't see her smile.

The transition was so abrupt that he felt like he had whiplash. Suddenly the memory was gone, and he was sitting in the cockpit of the jet, hands on the controls as if he'd been caught in a fugue just as he was in the middle of pre-flight procedures. He glared at Bob, and snapped, "You pushed me, didn't you?" Part of him was furious; the other part of him wanted Bob to send him back there, but also enable him to act within the memory somehow, so he could … what? Touch her? Warn her that she should never come looking for him? Ask her why she felt the need to die?

"Holy shit, that's it," Bob said, a startled look on his face.

He wasn't sure what the connection was between those two statements were, so he assumed he was talking about something else. "What's it?"

"Logan's gene _is _killing everyone."

The feeling of whiplash increased. "Huh? But genes aren't lethal."

"No, but his healing factor is."

Scott scratched his head, and felt a small lump on his scalp, barely the size of a pinprick. An insect bite? Stockholm didn't have mosquitoes, did they? Damn global warming. "No, it's not. It's a healing factor, not a killing factor."

"Ah, but it is a killer - if people aren't adapted to it. See, Jean had it right: his body is adapted to his healing factor, in the way yours is adapted to your power. When his healing factor kicks in, blood pressure and body temperature spikes, and heart rate and metabolism go into overdrive. Logan's body is made to take it; to him it's nothing. But put it in a normal person, a normal person who probably has some every day bumps and bruises, a few random scars, maybe a bit of arthritis in the knee or the herpes simplex that causes occasional cold sores. The healing factor senses the damage and gets to work … and in the process, causes sudden heart attacks, strokes -"

Scott suddenly knew what he was getting at, and couldn't believe it. " - aneurysms."

"It causes a lethal event, and while the factor tries to repair it, it finds it can't. The body isn't adapted to it, and doesn't work with it. It's just a big, injured, ill carrier, and the more it tries to heal things …"

"The more damage it does. Shit, it is responsible, isn't it?"

"It would make perfect sense. All these idiots saw was dollar signs, and never bothered to do a bit more research on the fact that Logan's body looks normal, but is far from it. The reason Logan's healing factor was never made into a panacea is because it can't be, not unless humanity as a whole is fundamentally altered. If we gave your powers to a normal person, it's unlikely they could handle it. The same is true for Logan's, but to a totally different degree. Yours would be damaging and troubling, but not lethal. His? Yes, unless the subject was tough enough to survive it. "

"So mutants could?"

Bob shook his head. "Some, perhaps. Not all, not by a long shot. Unless you'd like to give it a try."

He scoffed. "No thanks. So we don't think it's a plague?"

"Too early to tell. It's possible a viral vector did become contagious, and if so, it's a hundred percent lethal to all normal people who come in contact with it - it would be the most lethal virus in the history of mankind. And all because it makes a Human body heal itself far too eagerly."

He got the jet launched, headed towards the Northern part of Luxembourg, and only then did he ask, "Are we gonna tell him?"

Bob sighed heavily, resting his elbows on the console and staring out at the sky. "We'll have to eventually. But maybe we should try and confirm it in another way."

"And how do we do that?"

"No fucking idea. I'm just dreadin' telling him."

He didn't blame him. He wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to him either. _"Hey, you're a bit more of a mutant than we thought. And your healing factor actually kills people weaker than you. Bummer, huh?"_

Yeah, he'd take that really well. Logan would be so thrilled, he'd probably put a hole through the fuselage.

No telling him until they landed somewhere safe.

* * *

He knew as soon as he stepped down on the rocky, snow dusted ground, that Marc had been here. This was the place. He found a bullet casing wedged between two rocks, glazed with a light coating of rime.

From the air, the place looked like a boxy, unattractive chateau on the edge of a rugged cliff, and it looked almost inaccessible, save from the air. According to a scan Scott did, there was an underground level to the chateau, built inside the cliff itself, which not only seemed weird, but pointless. But that meant this was probably the place - few innocent people had secret dungeons.

Logan didn't wait for Scott or Bob. He headed off across the uneven terrain, boots crunching through the thin layer of ice beneath the snow, breath exploding before him in thick clouds. He supposed he should have worn a jacket, his skin was a layer of gooseflesh now, but he wasn't aware of any discomfort. He'd been colder.

He was aware there was no one here anymore, but he didn't want to believe it. Even as he broke through the front door and sprung his claws, waiting for an attack or a hail of bullets, he had hoped his sense would be wrong.

But standing there, he was assailed by odors and sights he couldn't dismiss. There were dead bodies splayed all over what seemed to be an antechamber, the scent of blood and death and shit and fear and cordite strong enough to make his eyes water. Many of these men had been shot, but not all. All of them had within reach or in their grasp semi-automatic weapons that had been fired, many times. You couldn't walk without kicking a spent cartridge. Blood had splattered the wall in splotches and smudges that would have made Jackson Pollock jealous, but they had all dried to an unattractive rusty brown.

He heard footsteps crunching on the snow, and soon he heard Scott make a gagging noise as he got a whiff of the room. "Ooh, this is unpleasant," Bob said, showing he was the master of the understatement. "I guess this proves Marc was here."

"Or someone with a small armory and a grudge," Scott added, sounding nasal and slightly distant. He was trying to breathe through his mouth, avoiding the stench as best he could.

"It was Marc," Logan insisted, making his way to the back of the room, where a perforated elevator shaft sat waiting, as if for a passenger. Even within all this blood, he smelled something familiar; a sharp scent, buried beneath the cordite and the slow corrosion of putrefying flesh. He crouched down, and rubbed his fingertip in a tiny drop of blood at the very edge of the shaft. Although dried, he still rubbed enough of it on his fingertip to be able to smell it, and there was no way to mistake it for anything else. "His blood's over here."

"Oh shit," Bob exclaimed, venturing in through the door. Scott continued to hang back. "But it's just his blood here, right? Not him?"

He'd already visually scanned the bodies, and knew there was no one in this room who wasn't a Caucasian. That made it easier; he wouldn't have to paw through day old corpses to make sure he wasn't at the bottom of a pile. "Not on this level, no." He looked down the shaft, and saw the elevator was on the lower level, broken cables dangling like severed veins. It wasn't that far a drop, barely a floor.

He stood up, and jumped down the shaft.

"Logan, you fucking nut!" Scott shouted, sounding startled.

He landed on his feet on top of the broken elevator, barely feeling the shock absorbed by his legs. He dropped to his knees and plunged his claws through the metal, slicing a Human sized hatch in the roof, with a little give on either size. The metal had just fallen through the new hole when he sensed a shadow looming over him. He glanced up, to see that Bob was now standing at elevator opening at the upper floor, looking down at him. "Would you stop showing off and giving us mere mortals heart attacks?"

"Stow the shit and get down here," he snarled. "And send Scott back to the jet. For all we know, there might be some active virus or whatever around." He jumped down the hole before Bob could reply, figuring he'd do the right thing. Bob was in no danger. Maybe he wasn't a god at the moment, but he wasn't Human either, no matter how he looked. It was a rare bug that could cross the species barrier from Human to demon.

He had to force the elevator doors open, as they were sealed shut, but it wasn't difficult. He looked up to see that Bob had chosen to shinny down the one intact cable and jumped down to the roof from a height less like to twist his ankle or break a bone. He couldn't heal with a word like he used to, not until the Powers stopped being pissed at him, or he found a way around it.

Bob slipped down the impromptu hatch and landed beside him. "Scott's on his way back to the jet. He's going to run a few more in depth scans."

"You pushed him, didn't you?"

"A bit."

This underground corridor was poorly lit, with a few flickering light strips on the side walls, illuminating the few scattered corpses and walls pockmarked by bullets and stained with blood. The smell was more concentrated down here, more meaty, while the cordite was like a razor blade to the sinuses. The hall was lined with several doors, so he just picked one at random and forced it open, for some reason shouting, "Marcus!" Like he would still be here even if he was still alive.

He forced open the door to what looked like a lab of some sort, although it looked a bit messy, mostly due to the fact that stray bullets had shattered equipment and caused general havoc. Bob looked over his shoulder, and said, "Ooh, good. Maybe there's a computer in here."

As Bob slid past him into the room, Logan told him, "There's no power, so it doesn't matter."

He tried a light switch as an experiment, and it clicked emptily, not doing a damn thing. "Huh. Good call. How'd you know there was no power?"

"Because if Marc was gonna storm the place, he'd cut the power first."

"Ah. Well, maybe there's some papers around, and if not, I'll just pull a hard drive."

He grunted and started to walk away, to the next door, when he heard Bob say, "Even if he was exposed, he might have survived it."

There was something in the tone of his voice, an assuredness and curious presumptuousness that made him pause. He backed up to the doorway, and looked in. Bob was rifling through drawers, looking for something worthwhile. "Why did you say that?"

"'Cause it's possible. He's got that above average strength and natural immunity to poisons, so maybe that means he's tougher inside and out."

Bob continued to shuffle through the lab, ignoring the fact that he was staring at him from the doorway. "What do you know about this?"

"I know nothink!" he replied in a bad German accent, continuing his pointless search.

Logan knew he was lying; what he didn't know was why. "You're corporeal now. I can hurt you."

Bob finally looked up at him, his expression both defiant and sad. "Only if I don't see you coming. It ain't gonna happen, Logan."

"What aren't you tellin' me?"

Bob's gaze was level, but mildly challenging. "I'm not hiding anything from you, mate, but we're not gonna have this discussion here. Find out if Marc is still here or not, and we'll go. We'll talk later."

He stared back at him, unafraid. "I ain't agreein' to that. You know somethin', tell me now."

Bob sighed wearily. "Don't make me push you."

Why did he consider him a friend again? He was beginning to think he'd made a huge mistake.


	7. Chapter 7

"See if he's here," Bob insisted, never looking away. "Then we'll have a chat, okay?"

He wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but it seemed like wasted breath. So he didn't say anything, just stormed off instead. He forced open door after door, mostly finding ruined equipment, dead bodies, or both. He found a couple of dark skinned men, but neither was Marc. It was a relief, but also a frustrating mystery. Did he get out? How? And where the fuck could he go?

Then again, how did he _get_ here? He couldn't have walked; hiking was also out of the question. He would have been spotted easily if he came in via chopper … unless they were expecting a chopper. Fraud, or did he hitch a ride with a well placed word and an automatic weapon or two? He wasn't here, but neither was there any obvious transport off this cliff face. If Marc survived the clash in here, he probably took the chopper. But where to? And if he was exposed to this virus or whatever, could he have accidentally carried it along with him? Were they going to find more dead bodies at the bottom of the mountain?

He continued searching the rooms, but grew more and more certain that Marcus was no longer here. In a way it was a relief - but in another way, it was pure torture. He could be a Popsicle somewhere on the slopes, and that was almost a best case scenario.

He came across a dead soldier with a large bazooka style weapon, only it had some weird extras, and was attached by several bulky cords to a heavy pack on the soldier's back. The electromagnetic gun? That would make sense. It probably ate up the juice like no one's business. It looked like it could still run, even though a bullet that had perforated the owner of the EMP rifle had also perforated the power pack. After a moment's consideration, he stomped and slashed the thing to pieces. If it was a prototype - which he assumed - they could just start over from scratch.

Searching around, he found a cell phone, and just by the smell he knew it was Marc's. It wouldn't power up, though, so he assumed it was completely fried by the gun, hence his discarding and leaving it here. He smashed it too, just to guarantee no one would ever be able to pull any information from it.

He found a trail of Marc's blood leading to a wall, or what seemed like a wall. Logan rapped on it, and realized it sounded far too thin and hollow. He felt along the wall until he found a seam, and then pulled - the wall slid away, silent on hidden casters. A secret back exit. How had Marc found this? But his breath erupting into clouds once more told him. Marc saw in infrared, and this had to have been the most suspiciously cold wall in the entire place.

It opened on a dark, cool space, something like a garage or a storage space, and when his eyes adjusted, he could see there was nothing in it beyond a few crates, one which was marked "Rubber Gloves" in Swedish.

Bob came up behind him, and said, "Got me a hard drive. I bet we can get a lot out of this puppy."

Logan grunted, not really interested, and followed the faint scent of Marc's blood into the cold darkness. Bob followed, but mainly out of curiosity. There was nothing but gloves and other random lab equipment in the crates, nothing incriminating, and he eventually found the outlet, leading to a gentle slope on the opposite side of the mountain. "Brr," Bob commented behind him. "I can feel the old lads pullin' up into me. Think we can go get some coats or something?"

He was cold too, in a vague sense, and his balls had already shriveled up, but he didn't care. He knew what had happened; he could see it in his mind's eye. Marc had shot his way in, figuring this for one of those medical labs that exploited mutants. It did, but it exploited them in a completely different way. With no one to rescue, he figured he stumbled into a trap, until it got out …

But what was the connection between here and the island off Denmark? That part was a huge blank, the unfinished ending. "There was a chopper down there, probably a small one," he told Bob, pointing down the snow. He could still smell the fuel. "Marc stole it. But he'd been shot at least twice, possibly more. Not including …" He didn't finish the sentence; he felt he didn't need to.

"There's a hospital not too far from the base of the mountain," Bob said. "Mainly for the skiers and climbers who bust their stupid asses. He could be there."

It sounded like wishful thinking, but if Bob wanted to play it like that, so be it. It wasn't like he had anyone he could vent his anger on.

They returned to the jet, where Scott was bent over the console, going over various scans. As they entered, he said, "What a weird place. Whoever bankrolled this had more money than sense."

"Most of us with money have no sense at all," Bob offered cheerfully, flinging himself in the copilot seat. He held up the hard drive he'd pulled from the computer, and asked, "Got computers that can read Swedish?"

Before Scott could ask him if he was serious, Logan interrupted, "You know what this virus is, don't you?"

Bob sighed, but Scott looked back at him, in some disbelief. "We know as much as you."

He took a deep breath, and very tersely shook his head. "Yer lyin'. I can smell it."

Scott raised his eyebrows. "You can _smell _lies?"

"Let's see if we can find Marc first," Bob interjected, staring at him. His look was just slightly challenging, as if reminding him he had no power here.

He didn't think, he just moved, a reflex so fast that he had Bob by the throat before he could push him. Scott grabbed his arm and put his other hand up to his visor, shouting, "Don't make me shoot you to save him!" The idea pained him so much it was evident in his voice, and he was sure Scott's reluctance would make him slow on the trigger, no matter what he said.

But Bob never flinched, and kept his eyes locked on him. He could push him any time, and wasn't overly concerned, which was even more infuriating. "Marcus is my friend, not yours," he growled. "And don't pretend otherwise."

"I wouldn't dare," Bob replied, his voice a grating rasp. But he made no effort to remove his hand from his throat, although Scott's grip was tight on his wrist.

"But yer using him as a shield to avoid questions, and I don't appreciate that. Knock that shit off now. Got it?"

Bob just gave him a "thumbs up", and flashed him a cheesy grin. Somehow it didn't seem wildly convincing, although he suspected he was serious. "Now tell me, what do you know about this virus? It is me killing people, isn't it?"

"No, it's your healing factor," Bob replied matter of factly.

For some reason that stunned him. He already knew he was to blame for all of this, and yet after all this evasion, he hadn't expected him to just admit it. He loosened his grip on his throat, and as he pulled back his arm, Scott let go, but he didn't relax just yet. He knew Bob wasn't kidding, but it sounded like a joke. "That … doesn't make sense," he finally said.

"I'm afraid it does," Bob told him, not unkindly. "They thought your healing factor was the fountain of youth, and tried to introduce it into others without doing all their homework. They didn't realize there's a price to pay."

Was he making this up? It almost sounded like he was. "What price? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Healing takes a lot out of you, mate. But the way you are, you don't realize how much."

He shook his head. "This is nonsense. What the fuck are you on about?"

"It was Jean who figured it out," Scott suddenly exclaimed. He rubbed the area under his visor like he was scratching his eye, a nervous gesture at mentioning her name. "I mean way back, when she was … When you heal yourself, a lot of things happen - your blood pressure skyrockets, your heart rate spikes - a lot of things that a normal person would probably not survive. But they didn't realize it when they started to use it on other people."

He was trying to follow this, but it didn't make sense. "But a healing factor heals those things."

"What it means, mate, is your body is altered to fit your powers. You look normal, but you're not. Not really. Your healing factor has to work in a certain environment to be ideal, and … well, you are it. Normal people can't take it."

It was like his legs had been kicked out from under him. He fell back in one of the passenger seats, and his heart sunk. But why was it such a surprise? He knew, didn't he? "You're saying I'm a bigger freak than I seem." It wasn't really a question.

"No, you've adapted to your own power," Bob said evenly. "You had to, otherwise it would have killed you."

"You'd have been like the opies," Scott concurred. "The overpowered, the ones whose powers are killing them."

"Adapt or die, the most basic law of evolution."

They were trying to make him feel better, he knew that, but he didn't feel better - he felt like the bottom had dropped out of what little certainty he had left. He knew then why Mariko was so important to him. She made him feel Human, something he wasn't and never really could be. Nothing was going to change that. He knew he was a mutant, he always knew that - well, as far as his spotty memories went - but he always felt like he was on the fringe, not _really_ one of them; after all, his powers were kind of questionable, weren't they? Nothing spectacular - he didn't get hurt, and he had these things in his hands. No big deal.

But it was. And hadn't he always known? Hadn't he unconsciously known he was just as mutated as the kid with two heads or poor Fidget with his jellied bones? He knew a long time ago that he should have been dead, that he had no right to still exist even though he had no idea how old he was; he could just feel the time in his bones, the ticking away of a layer of reality that had so very little to do with him.

God, that scared him - that terrified him. How many centuries would he continue to exist? Would he never die, just watch everyone else around him do it? People who deserved to live when he did not? It was a nightmare.

He looked up to see Bob still staring at him, staring through him, and Logan knew that he knew exactly what he was thinking. He hated him even more now. "Get us to the hospital."

"Logan -" Bob began, pity in his tone.

"_Get us to the fucking hospital!" _he roared, not willing to tolerate his sympathy for a single second more.

Scott started up the jet, and they headed off down towards the foot of this end of the Ardennes range, leaving behind the bodies in the secret lab. Was Schultz among them? Probably; he wasn't wearing a name tag. It would have been helpful he was.

Bob pointed out the hospital, a long, flat building that looked like a heat warped L, with a small cluster of outbuildings and a parking lot containing about a dozen cars in bright colors. From the air, they looked like toys. Scott put the jet down in a section of pasture behind the hospital, and Logan left the cockpit without saying a word, opening the hatch before Scott had powered down the secondary thrusters.

He headed out without them, and neither rushed out to follow him. Maybe they didn't know what to say; maybe they didn't want to know how he'd react if Marc wasn't here.

Once inside, he approached the front check in desk, where a plump nurse sat typing on a computer. She was on the full figured side, but undeniably attractive - she had big, bright eyes, and a full mouth painted the faintest shade of purple, her dark hair held behind her in a long French braid that fell down her back. When he approached the desk, she looked up and asked if she could help him in Luxembourgish. Did he know that language? He must have - he just understood her, didn't he?

He asked her if they had any dark skinned male patients, and she understood him, so he must have been speaking her language? She looked up at him from beneath dark lashes, almost flirtatiously, and he figured she was a good time girl, one of those who never said no to a bit of fun. He briefly wondered if he should ask for her number. But then she asked him why he wanted to know, which was a troubling question.

"Just give us a yes or no, darlin'," Bob commanded, in his strangely casual way - as if it was really an option. Scott was with him, but hung back, and everything in his posture suggested he was uncomfortable just being here. It was probably his emotional outburst in the jet; it made Scott uncomfortable, and he didn't know what to say to him. That was fair enough, as he didn't know what to say about any of it.

The nurse sat up a bit straighter, and said there was. Bob made her escort them to his room, while giving them a report on his condition. A private helicopter crashed almost two days ago, on the edge of the slope. He was found inside, suffering from injuries that turned out to be mostly bullet wounds, much to their shock. They'd reported it to police, but since the victim - he had no identity papers of any kind on him (which confirmed to Logan that this was indeed Marcus, if the bullet wounds weren't enough), so they didn't know what to call him - had yet to regain consciousness, he couldn't be questioned. And attempts to trace the helicopter had been strangely fruitless.

This hospital was quite small, and not really equipped to deal with such an intensively injured patient, but he wasn't stable enough to transport yet. There were also some "oddities" in his physical condition that were a bit confusing - they weren't sure what to make of him.

"So he wasn't exposed to the virus," Bob said confidently.

"Because he's not dead?" Logan replied sharply, aware that he would be if he had been.

"Well, yeah. Also, everyone in the hospital appears to be alive."

"So why did he report that something had gotten out?" Scott wondered, sounding confused.

That was a bit of a poser. After a moment, Bob asked him, "Did he speak the language?"

A surprisingly relevant question, and one he had to think about for a moment. "Probably not. I know he speaks French, but I'm not sure about any other languages. Some Spanish, maybe enough German to get past customs."

"So we can assume everyone at the lab spoke a language he didn't understand fluently," Bob said, clearly working towards a supposition. "So he heard pieces - words but not sentences - that he understood. Let's assume he heard that the lab was in a panic over the release of the virus, or whatever it is. Maybe he assumed they were discussing the outbreak there, when they were really abuzz over the outbreak somewhere else."

"The island," Logan concluded. "But what happened on the island? Why did they have it there and not at the lab?"

"Maybe it was at the lab, but it was contained. When I can hit the hard drive, we'll know more."

The nurse led them to a small, private room, painted in soft and appallingly bland shades of beige and egg white, where a man who could only be Marc laid swathed in white blankets and surrounded by beeping machines, a tangle of tubes like external veins dripping fluids and meds into his bloodstream, while a tube running beneath his nose fed him oxygen. His vital signs weren't great, but they could have been worse.

"What can you do here?" Logan asked Bob, because he honestly didn't know. Could he heal him, or was that all pure god power?

Bob sighed heavily, glancing at the monitors before replying. "I can tell him he'll be fine, but I have no way of guaranteeing he'll hear me. He may; he may not."

"Shit." He was afraid of that. But he supposed he had to be happy with the fact that they'd found Marc, and he was still alive - at least for now. A small victory, but all they had.

* * *

Bob "told" Marc he was going to be fine, that he was going to recover with no ill effects, but there was no response at all: his vital signs showed no improvement, and he certainly didn't wake up. Bob decided to try and check out the hard drive using a computer aboard the jet, so Scott went with him to help set up the interface. This was a handy excuse to leave him alone with Marc, but he didn't mind.

Bob had also asked the nurse - whose name was Marta - to call the police who were working on Marc's case to tell them he was conscious. An obviously lie, but Bob wanted to make sure the case was closed, and he could only do that if he could talk to the cops in person.

So Logan was left sitting in an uncomfortable chair by Marc's bedside, watching the monitors and wondering why they didn't change. It would have made all of this worthwhile if he just woke up. "Did you know this was connected to me somehow?" Logan asked his insensate form. He sagged back in the hard plastic chair, and answered his own question. "Naw. You'd have asked if I wanted in on the fun. At least you'd never bullshit me. So that's why you've gotta suck it up and survive this, 'cause I gotta have one friend that'll always be straight with me."

He noticed Marc had gotten himself a tattoo recently, on his left upper arm. It was a bright, almost metallic blue shadow of a scorpion, a silhouette with no detailing at all, and the color was bright and rich enough to stand out nicely against his dark brown skin. It was small too, no bigger than a stick of gum, and he wondered why he got it, and from whom. "You're gonna have your own superhero logo no matter what, huh? It's not bad. I bet you drew it and got some tattoo artist to put it on you. It looks like something you'd draw."

For some reason, he could feel tears coming to his eyes, and he didn't know why. He blinked them back and sniffed hard, realizing that he had been in this scenario too many times - he'd been at someone's bedside, either waiting for them to die or waiting for them to get better. The last one had been that poor old man who called him the "Canuck" and talked about World War Two Europe like it was just yesterday. Of course, that meant he didn't notice that he had hardly aged at all in the intervening years, and wasn't exactly the same "Canuck" he seemed to think he knew. But if he hadn't been there, that old man would have died alone, a forgotten hero of a secret war.

Shit, he hated this. If he was this kind of ageless freak, why did he bother having interpersonal relationships at all? Almost everyone would die long before him - how in the hell could he keep doing this? The emotional agony would be too much; it was almost too much right now.

"God, I'm a self-pitying bastard, aren't I?" he noted angrily, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. "You should wake up and hit me. If you had my powers, you would probably find some way to use it to help people. Me? I'm just bitching. Like having nothing but casual relationships and one night stands for the rest of my life is a bad thing. You seem to enjoy it."

He heard a change in the sound of one of his monitors, and glanced up at them. His respiration and heart rate was increasing - not growing thready, but slowly getting back to normal. He sighed in relief. "So you heard him? Good. Or was it the invitation to hit me?" Actually, knowing Marc, it was the latter, and he couldn't blame him. He was probably going to regain consciousness just to beat his ass down, and he'd let him if he wanted to, just to have him awake again. Well, within limits - if he hit below the belt, Marc was gonna lose a tooth.

He heard footsteps approaching, someone coming down the hall, and just from the familiarity of the gait, he knew who it was before he pushed open the door. "I think we found something," Scott said, and then casting his gaze on Marc, asked, "Is he getting better?"

"Seems like it."

He nodded, and even though he knew Scott really didn't like Marc, he had the good grace to seem relieved. "I'm glad. You don't read Swedish, do you?"

He stood up, and had a feeling where this was going. "I think I do, yeah. Need me to translate?"

"Well, we need you to confirm. Our translation software seems to be acting odd."

He snorted derisively. "That stuff's shit. When it doesn't screw up the syntax, it has a tendency to strip the context, and it's useless when it comes to colloquialisms."

Scott stared at him until he joined him in the hall. "So you used to be an English teacher?"

"Fuck you," he replied sourly, although not with much heat. Where had all that come from? It sounded familiar somehow, rote, like he'd said it so many times it had become a canned speech. But since when had he ever said that to anyone? Some vestige of his "Lingo" past, churned up by his inconstant little ruin of a mind.

Back in the jet, Bob was singing to himself as he worked on an interface console in the cockpit, trying to tease more information out of the stolen hard drive. "- I will tear the petals off of you, Rose Red I will make you tell the truth … oh, heya guys. Do you know what's really disturbing? I think Schultz was into sploshing porn."

"Sploshing?" Scott repeated dubiously. "You're making this up, right?"

"Nope," Bob replied with an inappropriate type of cheerfulness. "It refers to someone who gets off on seeing people - usually women - soaking wet and often covered in strange substances, such as custard or mud or jelly, whipped cream -"

Scott waved his hands as if warding him off, and made a noise of disgust. "I don't even want to know how you know the _name _of such a thing."

"Well, it's not like it's golden showers or anything -"

"Stop it now, or I'll shoot you."

Bob turned back to the computer screen with a shrug, but Logan caught his sneaky little smile. Yeah, sometimes it was just too fun to irritate Scott. "Fine. I won't you show you the pics then. Wanna give this a once over, Logan?"

He stood behind Bob and looked over his shoulder, as he opened a document on screen. Beside it, in a separate window, was the translation, which had obvious gaps and scrambled words, ones it was unable to translate. He scanned the translation first, then the original document, and couldn't help but scoff. "What the hell kinda translation program is this? It's barely coherent, and cut down an entire page to a paragraph and a half."

"This is why we needed you, mate," Bob told him.

He read the document quickly, and saw the pieces falling into place. "Oh shit."

"It's that bad?" Scott wondered.

"This is a message from Schultz to someone named Gudrunsen back at Priotech. He decided that since he didn't want to alert rival pharmaceutical companies to the development of the … "Mercy" treatment. They called it Mercy?"

"You're translating a proper name," Bob told him. "It's the Eir treatment, Eir being a Norse goddess of healing. She was so good at it, she could supposedly resurrect the dead. I believe she's the patroness of health care workers now."

"You know her?" Scott asked, somewhat sarcastically.

Bob shrugged. "Not personally, but I know Frigg, her best mate. She's a bit uppity at times, but really a dag."

Logan gave him a skeptical glance, but went back to the document. "Okay. He was afraid of the Eir treatment leaking out, so he decided to illegally conduct trials on a small group of rather healthy people in an isolated location … the island."

"The island," Bob agreed, and opened up another document. This was a more informal email, not addressed to anyone in particular, with a couple of typos that probably threw the translation software right off. "Here he's panicking," Logan told them. "The gene is … acting strange. He says here that it seems like the vector is live again, and people are dropping dead. He doesn't know how the vector became live again … unless the gene somehow "healed" it."

Bob groaned. "Of course, that's it. Your healing factor gene actually healed the neutered vector, making it contagious."

Logan stared at him in disbelief. "That's not fucking possible."

He looked up at him helplessly, with the tiniest of shrugs. "I'd have said so too, but we don't know how far your healing factor can go, especially in a situation like this."

Silence lingered, and Logan could feel it pressing down on him like a weight. It was all his fault, in more ways than one.

It was Scott who eventually broke the awkward, heavy silence. "That email was sent today, wasn't it?"

Of course it was, that seemed like an idiotic question, but then he realized what he was getting at. "He was on the island."

"And we didn't find anyone living there," Scott pointed out. "So either he died there, caught up in his own contagion, or he got out just as the dying started to occur."

"We need to confirm that," Logan said, grimly delighted at the prospect that Schultz might still be alive, a target for cathartic vengeance. "Is there a picture of this guy?"

"Give me a mo," Bob replied, happily typing away. A few documents sprung open on the desktop, none that appeared very helpful, until what had to be some kind of internal security document came up. There was a small photograph on the upper right hand side of one Doctor Bernhard Gunther Schultz, and while Logan was sort of hoping for an evil, sneering caricature, all he saw was a pathetic, pudgy little man with a soft, round face, small eyes, and a fringe of pale brown hair ringing his gleaming scalp. He could have been an accountant or a civil servant of some sort; he was so average as to be anonymous. He was the perfect picture of a banal "everyman". He should have been a leering mad scientist, an avaricious weasel you could instantly hate - instead, he could have been a depressive chiropodist.

"I don't remember seein' his body in the street." Could the bastard have survived? Could he have gotten away, possibly to infect others? The cold blooded fucker.

"He probably wouldn't be in the street," Bob said, standing up. "Let's go check for ourselves. We'll be back in a bit, Scott." He grabbed his arm, and muttered the incantation for teleportation.

In the blink of an eye, they were back on the island, standing on the cobblestone street, in the middle of a sea of corpses being picked at by birds. Many scattered in a wheeling, shrieking flock as they suddenly appeared amongst them, a moving darkness on the bloody orange sky.

The smell hit him like a physical blow, and it was worse this time. He took a moment to adjust to the hellish reek, and glanced at Bob, who looked a little blue (the equivalent of being green for him). "Ooh, this is even more unpleasant than the lab."

"In more ways than one." The men at the lab were armed; they fought back, assuming they didn't instigate it all in the first place. These people had no chance to fight back, even if they had the ability.

Bob seemed to take a moment to collect himself, then straightened up, clearing his throat. "Okay. If Schultz had been here, he'd have been in some kind of guest housing. This place is too small for a hotel, but maybe there's a bed and breakfast or a boarding house."

Logan scanned the town, trying to avoid looking directly at the rotting, partially eaten corpses. Finally, at the opposite end of the town, he saw a chateau with a small sign hanging out front that read "Inn". "There," he told Bob, heading towards it. Bob followed, picking his way carefully over the bodies.

The inn was small, quaint, and contained bodies, which Logan could smell before he opened the front door. But there was another smell too, one he was shocked to pick up in a place like this. Cordite; gunpowder.

There had been shooting in this house.


	8. Chapter 8

He stopped so abruptly that Bob almost ran into his back. "What's up?"

"I smell gunfire," he said, quickly moving through the house. He found an elderly woman dead on the kitchen floor, but there was no blood, no smell of cordite, suggesting she'd died of the Eri virus. He found an elderly man in the drawing room, sprawled out dead on a settee, also surprisingly free of blood. He pelted up the quaintly narrow staircase to the upper level, and it was there he smelled the cordite the most strongest. He opened two doors before he found the right one.

Was it Schultz? It must have been; a laptop computer was open on a small desk, its screen casting a cool, dim blue-white light throughout the room. The man who must have been Schultz was laying on the floor, his back to the door. What had been the contents of his skull had spilled out on the carpet, leaving him laying in a puddle as black as ink, most of which had saturated the carpet. There was a smear of brain matter and skull fragments on the opposite wall, telling Logan almost all he needed to know.

Taking a closer look, he found the gun still in his right hand, a 9 millimeter that was devastating at point blank range. Half his skull was gone, but he found a powder on the skin of his head that was still intact, just beneath the right ear. He sat back on his haunches, avoiding the gore, and glanced up at the laptop screen to see if there was anything useful up there. There wasn't.

He heard Bob join him, pausing in the doorway. "So what happened?"

"He killed himself," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "He blew his own fucking brains out."

Bob was quiet for a moment. "Maybe he couldn't live with himself after realizing what he had done."

"Or he was afraid he had been infected and decided to take his own way out."

"Maybe both." He nodded his head at the laptop. "He leave a suicide note?"

Logan got up and had a better look, navigating through various screens, having a look at the desktop. "No. He erased his hard drive. Trying to cover his tracks, I guess."

"No one wants to be remembered as a mass murderer," Bob pointed out, almost sounding sympathetic towards the creep. "Especially a doctor who thought he was going to be doing something good."

"Good for his wallet." He shut down the laptop and slammed it shut, disgusted with everything.

"That goes without saying, but I think he honestly wanted to help people, if only to cement a Nobel Prize for himself. Everybody wants to find that miracle cure, that panacea that will purge the Human race of disease and illness. You were the best bet, if only it wasn't for that caveat. There's always a catch."

He tossed the laptop to Bob, who caught it easily, not at all surprised he'd slung it at him. "I want to put an end to Priotech and Primafacie."

"Already done. Tomorrow, they'll both be grabbed in a semi-hostile takeover by BobCo, and repurposed into the sadly growing field of cloning endangered or extinct species. Can you imagine a world without Siberian tigers in it? I don't even want to."

It was possible he was joking, but highly unlikely. Bob did like to kill businesses at the boardroom level, arguably the best way to go about it. But the tiger thing? Well, he was weird, so he was probably serious. "As soon as I own them both, I'll make them turn over all their records, every single scrap," Bob continued. "I find anything concerning you, you can see it before I destroy it. Cool?"

He sighed, aware that they were done here. But why didn't it feel satisfying? Marc would be okay, and he should be happy about that. He was, he honestly was, but … all these dead people. Where was the justice for them? Could there ever be any?

"You wanna go?" Bob suggested mildly. "I'll alert the appropriate authorities that there seems to be an awful lot of dead people here. They'll take care of things."

He nodded, aware that that was honestly all they could do. "This still doesn't feel right. These fucking bastards used me to kill all these people, and they didn't even mean to. They just wanted to exploit my biology for money."

"And they're done. I know it seems like a dog's breakfast, but this is over - the Organization must know now that they can't transfer your ability to non-mutants; that's a well that's not only dry, but poisoned. I'm just sorry all these people had to pay the price for the strip mining of your genes."

"Me too." He looked around the small, utilitarian guest room, with its quaint blue and white checkered curtains open to the dying rays of the sun, overlooking a street full of corpses. There was no way this could ever feel right; there was no way this debt could ever be paid, this sin atoned.

But maybe this sin wasn't really his to pay for. Maybe it was time he left the Organization to bear their burden alone.

11

Three Days Later

The only consolation was things could have been worse.

Once news got about the deaths, it was blamed on an outbreak of "bird flu", which then became a biological terrorist strike, and then a mutant terrorist strike. Was the Organization behind that rumor? Logan had no idea, but that one seemed to have dug itself in, making him suspicious.

Marc was getting better by the day, and was able to transfer to a hospital in Belgium, where he was dying to leave. "Brussels's so fucking boring," he complained. "Everything's too damn quaint." He actually had a point, which was kind of sad, but the Belgians probably liked it. Marc was already preparing to return to the States.

Logan told him everything, what happened, what he had stumbled into, and Marc was really surprised, a good sign that he hadn't known of his connection to the "outbreak" prior to this. He commented that it was all "pretty fucked up", which seemed to encapsulate things nicely.

Bob did in fact "take over" Priotech and the shell that was Primafacie with his own shell corporation. Bob offered him some stock, because it was "going through the roof". The sick thing was, it actually _was_, proving that a hostile takeover wasn't considered bad by the stockholders.

Scott had long since returned to the mansion, but Logan hadn't gone with him. He stayed behind in Brussels, on Bob's dime, staying in a quaint hotel where everyone was very pleasant, the maids didn't use that air freshener in his room as he requested (it was like walloping him with a two by four, straight to the sinus cavities), and he was so bored he had taken to counting the bunches of flowers in the wallpaper pattern. Belgian television was dreadfully dull; even the commercials were too genteel to take seriously. He got a lot of reading done, though, which was a good thing (there was a nice bookshop on the opposite block, which was a good place to kill some time), and saw a film, which turned out to be French and badly translated (he grew increasingly irritated at the shortcuts the subtitlers took with the dialogue). He kept trying to find a seedy bar, a kind where he would feel more at home, but so far all he found were nice little pubs with varying levels of quaintness. At least the beer was good.

Marc was right about Brussels. There was a point where quaintness and politeness felt like it was slowly strangling you, and you were dying for something untoward - a bar fight, a mugging, a rude bastard who screamed at you for no reason at all - but it never seemed to happen. He worried about himself that he couldn't take such constant civility; at least Marc was the same way, so he didn't feel so bad.

One morning, he woke up, aware he wasn't alone, but he knew he hadn't picked anyone up last night. But as soon as he caught their scent, he knew who it was, and groaned into his pillow. "Do you ever knock?"

"And spoil the surprise?" Bob replied, with an exaggerated sort of cheerfulness. "Come on, get up. I actually do have a surprise for you, a good one for a change. "

He rolled over and stared at Bob, who was standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a big smile, a pair of crocodile patterned leather pants, and a bright blue t-shirt that said inexplicably, in small yellow lettering, 'Give me a hand, I'm going to milk the cows'. Where the hell did he get his freaky shirts? "Will it get me outta Brussels?" He wondered.

"Too right."

"Okay, give me a minute to get dressed." Hey, now that Marc was doing so well, there was no reason to bore himself to death in Belgium. He could easily die someplace else, perhaps under livelier circumstances.

* * *

He had honestly forgotten what a beautiful area this was.

Why he had no idea, except he hadn't been back here in a dog's age. In fact, he'd nearly forgotten about, since the last time he was here was when he showed up to decompress after his last divorce. Which was ….what? About twenty years ago? Maybe fifteen. He usually got married in ten year spurts, so this was a surprisingly fallow period for him.

They teleported right in the clearing, in front of the house. It was a nice house - small, modern, but rather modest, with a sharply peaked roof and large, panoramic windows to take advantage of the natural light; there was also a skylight in the living room. There was a semi-rustic looking porch area, ideal for sitting and watching absolutely nothing happen.

Beyond the fifty foot ring of the natural clearing, huge, ancient pines and firs of many varieties - with the occasional hemlock, red cedar, and Garry oak added for visual interest - rose up around them like a natural barricade, which was pretty much the case. Logan looked around curiously, and showing an uncanny knack for parsing smells (or identifying trees - hard to say, really), asked, "Is this Canada?"

Bob nodded vigorously. "Indeed it is. Good sniffer you got there. It's British Columbia, to be exact; the Kootenays to be even more precise, between the Columbia River over thataway -" he pointed to the thicket of trees to the immediate northeast "- and a town called Nakusp, over thataway." Now he pointed to a completely different thicket of trees to the southwest.

"Nakusp?" Logan repeated, as if he's heard of it before. Had he? Well, hell, how long had he been aimlessly wandering the Canadian countryside like a nomad in a really shitty truck? He probably knew every place there was to know. "The place with the hot springs?"

"You been?"

He shook his head. "No, I've been to Halcyon, though. Figure it's the same thing."

Ah, Halcyon Hot Springs, which wasn't that far from here. Actually, there was a buttload of hot springs in this part of British Columbia, and Bob had honestly been to most, because he thought they were kind of fun. He felt he'd missed his calling as a water god of some sort, since he was so fond of surfing and hot springs - he could make an extended weekend out of that easily.

Logan looked at him with pure bafflement, the tilt of his eyebrows suggesting he was on the verge of annoyance. "What the fuck are we doing here?"

"I'm givin' you the house. C'mon, I'll show you the grounds." He headed for the house, bounding up the two wide cedar steps up to the neatly laid porch. If he didn't say so himself, he had conjured up a nice little house here. Too bad he didn't use it more.

Oh, he intended to. After his last divorce he'd decided he wanted to escape an urban, demon and people heavy environment and just shun everyone, but it was a stupid, rash decision. After all, he'd done the self-imposed exile thing about a century ago in the Outback, and hadn't he learned his lesson then? He made a bad loner. He needed people - and others - far too much. He supposed he could blame his basic nature, as the Powers were single organisms, and yet existed as a group organism at the same time, the paradox of being forever alone and never alone. He desired a peace that didn't exist, and couldn't exist. He'd come to terms with that - embracing a Zen philosophy helped a bit - but Logan hadn't yet, and he desperately needed to before he had another nervous breakdown.

It was kind of funny. For a gruff, macho guy who sweated testosterone, he was far too sensitive for his own good half the time. An odd paradox that made him feel like Logan was the son he hadn't realized he'd misplaced.

"Huh? You're giving me a house?"

"Call it instant karma. You gave Angel the flat Wing left you, and now I'm paying you back by givin' you a place I haven't used for years. You swapped one for another, and never realized it."

Logan followed him up onto the porch with an obvious reluctance, staring at him like he'd lost his mind. "I don't wanna house. I mean, thanks, but -"

"You need somewhere you can cool your heels when you're tired of people," he replied, opening the door and strolling inside. "This is that place."

He looked hard at the door. "There's no lock?"

"No. The house is surrounded by a glamour Ammy put up for me. Not only can no one see this house - by infrared, naked eyes, satellite, sonar, you name it; this house doesn't exist by any measurement - but it repels anyone who accidentally comes close. Any person that doesn't belong here gets an unbearable urge to run away, as if their lives depended on it." He turned to face him, flashing a bright smile. "They say these woods are haunted, you know. Ancient Indian burial grounds or somethin'." He thought that was a brilliant bit of embellishment on Ammy's part.

Logan was about to say something, but paused in mid breath, as he saw the living room, with its skylight flooding the place with natural light, showing off the crushed velvet sofa wedged between built in bookshelves that ringed the room, interrupted only by a fireplace made of large river stones, and an entertainment system on the shelves directly across from the couch. There was a plush royal blue throw rug spread out over the wood flooring, and a bright blue and red abstract painting done by one of his grandkids on the patch of bare wall behind the sofa. "Holy fuck," Logan finally gasped. He seemed to gravitate towards the bookshelves, which he had come in and recently restocked. He'd also stocked in a bunch of movies, and set up an internet connection in the bedroom, along with a cell phone, as he figured that Logan might need some privacy, but he shouldn't be totally isolated.

Bob walked into the open archway, and gestured behind him. "The bathroom's in here - full bath and everything, the water's from a rather large well - and the bedroom's past it. You have electricity, but you will never get a bill, as it never registers on any instruments. There's also an emergency generator in a shed out back, which also has all sorts of gardening and land implements that you might need, and probably ones you'll never need. But I figure you're an outdoorsy kind of guy."

Logan turned and stared at him, jaw slack. "You can't be giving me all this, Bob. I don't want charity."

"It's not charity! I ain't usin' it, and I need someone to take care of shit while I'm gone." He was aware that this was similar to what he told Angel, as he had talked to him.

He gave him a look that suggested he knew that, his eyebrow raised sharply, but what could he say? If he said that was bullshit, he would be admitting that what he told Angel was bullshit. "But -"

"It's yours, mate. Enjoy it. You'd be doin' me a favor."

He gave him that skeptical look, but it slowly faded to something akin to gratefulness. He looked down and away before mumbling, "Thank you."

Since he was facing away, Bob whispered, a gentle push, "Find your peace, Logan. Stay here, and have no nightmares. Feel like you're finally home."

Logan wandered over to the far bookcase to have a look at the titles, and Bob joined him, pointing out various novels and rambling with the happy bullshit he expected from him.

After so much death and so much guilt, it was high time he had a vacation from it.

* * *

The End 


End file.
